‘Yes – but will he want it without you? I don’t think so.’

Taking hold of Rosie’s hands, Molly told her firmly, ‘That’s why you have to help me. You can convince him, I know it. Forget about me and think of him. He’s your son. Do it for him.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I’ll be all right. At least I’ll know he’s off the street and building a future for himself. It’s what he wants, Rosie, and it’s what I want. But I can’t do it without you. You have to help me!’

Rosie was badly shaken. ‘I didn’t think it would come to this.’

Scrambling out of her chair, Molly got to her knees in front of the older woman. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she murmured. ‘He’ll get over me.’

But she would never get over Alfie. Not till the day she died.

Chapter Nine

When Rosie was gone, Molly set about her work. With the children happily occupied, she immersed herself in the housework; anything to stop her dwelling on the situation in which she found herself. Besides, the house needed a good clean.

Since learning of her mam’s hurried departure from these parts, Molly had been able to think of nothing else. Now though, she deliberately set her mind to other things.

Turning the wireless on, she let the music invade her senses, even humming the tunes on the Home Service as she washed the breakfast things and put them away. She then took out a small galvanised bucket from under the pot sink; filled with rags and small shoe-brushes, it held all the tools with which to clean and blacklead the fire-range.

Setting the bucket down beside the hearth, she removed every ornament from the mantelpiece… her mam’s sewing box, the pretty brass candlesticks given to her by Rosie last Christmas, a sprig of lucky heather palmed on to Amy down the market by some toothless old Romany. Hanging underneath the mantelpiece was one of Frank’s old socks; tucked into this was a box of matches and two penny candles. When Molly came home from work one day to wonder at the sock hanging from under the mantel-cloth, Amy told her, ‘If the gas goes, we won’t all be in the dark.’ The gas had gone many times since then, and Amy had saved them all with her funny little idea.

Taking down the sock, Molly felt her tears rising and quickly put it with the other artefacts. But when she came to take down the small cameo frame holding a photograph, the tears finally fell, and with them went the last vestige of her self-control.

The photograph was of her mam and dad on their wedding day, and behind them, standing proud and stiff, were their respective parents. There was Grandad Henry, with his long droopy moustache and balding head; his wife, small and pretty, wearing a black hat with a feather; and her mam’s parents, Granny Mary and Grandad John, both wonderful people. All gone now these past ten years and more.