He looked at Olive who came to him and helped him take off his coat without saying a word. It wasn’t until he’d sat down and unlaced his hobnailed boots that she said, ‘Alice is in bed. She’s worn herself out playing with your Fred’s two when I popped round your mam’s this afternoon. Your mam’s looking after them in the day now while Bess works at the pickling factory.’

When he made no response to this, she said quietly, ‘Your da was there.’

‘Aye, he would be.’

‘He said you and the others got taken on.’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ He was suddenly so tired he could barely speak. ‘Boyce has got us labouring.’

‘Labouring?’

‘Aye, he’s enjoying showing us who’s boss. He’s treated us as less than the muck under his boots and loved every minute.’

Olive stared at him, compassion and anger in equal measure in her eyes, and the3n she amazed Adam and surprised herself by using language a sailor would think twice about. He would have sworn on oath that his wife, his quiet, proper and somewhat prim wife, had never heard such profanities, and for a moment the indignities and ignominy of the day, the shame of which had been compounded by knowing that yet again they’d had to accept a handout from Ruby, were swept away. Olive had clapped her hand to her mouth, shock widening her eyes, and this as much as anything else brought the laughter bubbling up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a belly laugh but he was having one now, and when after a few moments Olive joined him, plumping down on the chair next to his, it further tickled him.

Quite when the laughter turned to something else he didn’t know, but he suddenly became aware that he was crying and not quietly but with great choking sobs that were torn up from the depths of him. His head was deep on his chest and his shoulders were hunched, and even as he cried, he thought, This is the final humiliation, crying like a bairn in front of her. A man was the head of the family; his wife was supposed to look up to him, respect him, and not only couldn’t he provide for her and Alice, but here he was blubbing like a baby.

He felt her arms go round him and realized she was kneeling in front of him, pressing him fiercely to her as she murmured more words he hadn’t expected to hear, but these were passionate, ardent, fiery declarations of how wonderful he was, how Boyce and the rest of them weren’t worthy to lick his boots, how strong he had been for her and Alice throughout the last months and how he was everything a husband and father should be.