‘What!’ Alfie was shocked to his roots. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Just let me explain,’ she pleaded. ‘Something’s happened. It’s changed everything. I’ve been wanting to tell you…’

One minute he was shaking his head slowly from side to side, as if trying to shrug off what was going through his mind. The next minute he had leaped from the chair. Grabbing her by the arms, he shook her. ‘My God! Now I understand. There’s someone else, isn’t there? That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me!’

‘NO!’ Molly was shocked he could even think such a thing.

His voice breaking with emotion, he pleaded, ‘Don’t lie to me. Don’t take me for a fool.’ Thrusting her away he kept his distance, his face contorted with disgust. ‘But then, I must be a bloody fool, or I would have seen it. Lately you’ve been acting strange.’ Throwing back his head, he groaned. ‘You’ve met somebody else, and you want rid of me, that’s it, isn’t it?’

Grabbing her again, he held her still, his face looking down on hers, the pain in his eyes awful to see. ‘For God’s sake, Molly, be honest with me.’

She opened her mouth to explain how he couldn’t be more wrong, when like a bolt out of the blue, it came to her how it could all be settled quickly, though not painlessly. Never painlessly. Unwittingly, Alfie had given her a way out.

‘All right!’ Feigning anger, she broke away from him. ‘I have met somebody else, only I didn’t know how to tell you.’ Her voice softened. ‘I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,’ she said truthfully. ‘You have to believe that.’ She wondered how she could sound so calm, when inside she was in such turmoil.

Grey-faced, he pulled away from her. ‘Who is he?’

When she shook her head, as if refusing to tell, he gave a small, cynical laugh. ‘I see.’

‘I’m sorry, Alfie.’ In the circumstances, there was nothing more she could say.

He turned to collect his jacket, and when he looked back she was standing there, head bowed, her heart like a lead weight inside her. When she felt his gaze on her, she almost ran to him and told him it was all a lie, all a trick to make him turn against her so he could follow his dream without a conscience.

For what seemed an age neither of them spoke. Eventually, when he walked to the front door, she watched from the parlour doorway.

At the door he paused, his head low, his voice accusing. ‘We made love,’ he murmured. ‘How could you bring yourself to do that, when you knew all along?’ A moment later and he was gone, out of the house. Out of her life.

The sound of the door clicking shut echoed in her brain. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the wall and sobbed shamelessly.

‘Don’t cry, Molly. Please don’t cry.’ Bertha was at the top of the stairs, unsure of what was happening, and scared by the sound of her big sister crying.