Mrs Gilbert only murmured her husband’s name but it was enough to check the outburst as he glanced at her face, grey with worry. He muttered something and then lapsed into silence, his lips moving one over the other.

‘There’s six been brought up dead and ten others injured but alive,’ Olive said quietly. ‘Barney and Toby Johnson were both killed – their mam collapsed when they were brought up.’

Ruby stared at her sister, aghast. Barney and Toby were identical twins and the same age as Adam; they were their mother’s pride and joy and had still been living at home. Olive reeled off the other names of the deceased, all of whom were known to Ruby, before she said, ‘They were all on one side of the fall in the main road. Adam and the rest of the shift are behind it, but – but they’re worried about the air.’

Suffocation. Carbon monoxide. Explosion. Death. All the words that had been with her in her early years with Adam rushed through Ruby’s mind but she found herself saying quite calmly, ‘They have air pockets sometimes, you know that, and even a little clean air can be enough to keep a man alive until the rescuers reach him. Don’t give up hope, Olive.’

‘I don’t want to live without him.’ It was a whisper for her ears only. ‘I know what I did was wrong and I hurt you and he suffered too, so much because he loved you so deeply, but – but we’re all right now, him and me.’

‘I know, I know.’ She didn’t want to hear this in spite of having come to terms with it.

‘He’s my life, Ruby. I know I can never be what you were to him but that doesn’t matter. If he dies—’

‘He won’t, he won’t. Keep believing that.’

‘I’m trying to.’

Olive’s teeth were chattering with the cold and now Ruby said softly, ‘Where’s Alice? Shouldn’t you go home and see to her, lass? She needs you.’

‘No, I can’t leave here, not till – till I know. My neighbour’s seeing to her, I couldn’t take her to Mam’s ’cause of Da. When he knew Adam was one of those who was down he had a sort of seizure. He thinks a lot of Adam. One in a million, he called him, the other day.’

‘I’d better go and see how Da is but I’ll come back if I can. Do you want me to bring you anything? A hot drink or something?’

Olive shook her head. ‘All the folk round about keep bringing us mugs of tea or soup an’ the like. They’ve been very kind.’ Olive caught hold of her arm. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Keep believing he’s all right, that’s what.’

‘I can’t.’ Olive shivered.