‘She’ll be good with the customers,’ he had told Anna. ‘And she might be company for you, too. I know how lonely you’ve been since you left the hospital.’

Anna wondered if she and Nellie Madigan would ever be friends. Nellie was an abrasive girl with a loud laugh and a vulgar sense of humour. Anna doubted her mother would ever have entertained the idea of someone like her working behind the counter. But Edward wouldn’t hear a word said against her, so that was that.

Now Anna put down the invitation and looked back at her husband. In the months since their marriage she had learned to read his expressions, and the frown on his face now made her feel wary.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

Edward looked at the invitation, then back at her.

‘So do you want to go to this wedding?’

‘I’d like to.’

‘Are you sure she’s not just being polite?’

Anna stared at him, taken aback. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve been gone a while now. And it’s not as if you see any of your old friends anymore, is it?’

And whose fault is that? Anna wanted to say. She had turned down their invitations to meet for tea or for an outing to a concert because Edward made it clear he didn’t like her going out without him. After a while, they had stopped asking.

It was a relief when they did, in a way. At least she no longer had to make up excuses.

But she missed them desperately.

‘But Sylvia sent me an invitation …’ she insisted.

‘Yes, but I don’t suppose she expected you to accept.’ Edward tilted his head and smiled at her. ‘I’m only thinking of you, my love. I don’t want you to make a fool of yourself.’

Anna looked down at the card in her hands. ‘Is that what you really think?’ she asked. ‘That she didn’t want me to accept?’

Before he could reply, the back door opened downstairs and Nellie Madigan’s voice rang out.

‘Eddie?’

Anna winced. ‘I wish you wouldn’t let the staff call you that.’

‘The staff?’ Edward mocked her.

‘You know what I mean. Charlie used to call you Eddie, too. It doesn’t seem right.’

‘It’s how she knows me from the pub.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s hard for her to remember to call me anything else.’

‘I still don’t like it. You wouldn’t have called Papa Friedrich, would you?’

She knew it was the wrong thing to say when she saw Edward’s face stiffen.

‘Yes, well, I don’t have to do everything the way your papa did, do I?’ He stood up. ‘I don’t mind what she calls me, so I don’t see why you should, either.’

At that moment Nellie appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Oh, beg pardon. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

But there was a glint in her green eyes as she said it. She was a big, brassy girl, her wide, smiling mouth painted scarlet even first thing in the morning. She was only twenty-one years old but already had two small children, so Eddie said.