Once in the kitchen, the only warm room in the house, she stoked up the fire in the range, which she’d left banked up with slack and damp tea leaves the night before, and went out into the small yard, which she tried to keep clear of snow. There had been a light fall during the night and the tap in the yard had frozen again in the sub-zero temperatures that had persisted for weeks, but she had been expecting this and had brought a small roll of burning paper to push up the spout. It took a couple of trips back indoors and more burning paper before she was rewarded by a trickle, but once the water was flowing she filled up the big iron kettle and set it on the hob in the kitchen. She normally left the kettle full before she went to bed but Adam had decided to sluice his upper body and wash his hair before they had gone to his mother’s the previous night. She hadn’t refilled it before they’d left and it had been after two in the morning when they’d got home.

Fifteen minutes later when Adam came downstairs she had a pot of tea on the table and within moments set his bowl of steaming porridge in front of him. He sat down and began eating as she poured him a cup of tea before seeing to his bait, which was four thick slices of bread and jam and a bottle of cold tea. Once she’d packed it into his knapsack and he’d finished the porridge, he reached for his jacket and cap, thrust his feet into the big steel-capped boots by the back door and left the house with the knapsack over one arm. Not a word had passed between them, but once the back door had closed behind him Olive let out a long deep breath, consciously relaxing tense muscles, and plumped down on a kitchen chair.