Adam stirred at the side of her, his snores faltering for a few moments before he grunted and turned over, one arm falling across her waist. Olive lay absolutely still, scarcely breathing, and when she was sure he was fast off again she slid slowly out of the bed. Only when she stood up did she start to breathe normally.

The room was like an ice box. Dressing swiftly and silently, she told herself she’d have a good strip-down wash later when Adam was at work. She’d bring the tin bath through and fill it in front of the range when Alice had her midday nap. Until then she would have to put up with the smell of him on her.

He hadn’t bothered her for some weeks before last night – she supposed she ought to be thankful for that – but he had been three sheets to the wind when they’d got back from the New Year’s Eve jollities and carry-on at his mam’s. Once she’d settled Alice down and come into their room, he’d been waiting for her.

She shut her eyes for a moment. It had only been in the last year that he had started drinking and then, to be fair, not often, but the indignities he inflicted on her when he was in his cups were ten times worse than his usual demands. Whilst most of the women hereabouts complained about their men’s reduced pay packets and longer working hours, calling Churchill and his gang every name under the sun, she was grateful that it meant there just wasn’t the money for Adam to spend on beer, not normally. But there were still the times when his da and brothers persuaded him to keep them company after a shift, or the infamous Gilbert family gatherings to celebrate something or other. The first time he’d got drunk again, after the fateful night Alice was conceived, was the New Year’s Eve before this one, and when, the next morning, she had remarked that she thought he was against getting legless, he’d stared at her with red rimmed eyes and mumbled something about, ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’

She turned, staring at the humped form under the mound of blankets and thick eiderdown.

She would never have believed that Ruby’s Adam – the happy, funny boy who’d grown into a happy, funny youth – could have turned into the man he was today. Even his own mam said he had changed beyond recognition and she knew everyone blamed her for the way he was. And it was her fault, she knew that. Losing Ruby had infected him like a malignant disease.