Fetching the baking tin with its rows of black and silver fish out of the oven, Olive left it on the side while she sliced a crusty loaf of bread she’d baked that morning into thick wedges. She had cooked the herring in vinegar and dripping, the oil from the fish adding to the mixture, and before she dished the fish up on their plates she would drain the gravy and tip it into two bowls in which she and Adam would dip the bread. Hannah had been anxious to get rid of the last of the fish in the back lane, and Olive had bought the herring for eight a penny, a bargain. It provided a cheap meal and one that Adam always enjoyed. While she had still been living at her mother’s, her mam had always cooked herring with potatoes and vegetables, but she’d learned Adam didn’t care for them that way, preferring the fresh bread as his mother had served them. It had been one of the more innocuous things she had had to come to terms with in her marriage.

Glancing again at the clock, she spooned the last of Alice’s meal of mashed vegetables and gravy into her daughter’s little rosebud mouth, and once the bowl was empty gave her another piece of hard bread just as she heard Adam walk into the yard. He objected if Alice made a mess when she ate; he objected to a lot of things concerning the child if it came to that, and from the day she had been born had insisted she slept in her own room rather than allowing the crib to be at the side of their bed for the first few weeks.

He didn’t speak as he came into the kitchen and neither did Olive greet him, but Alice gave a little squeak of agitation at the sight of her father, which Adam completely ignored. Taking off his cap and frayed working jacket he sat down at the table and opened the newspaper he always bought on his way home from the pit, disappearing behind it while Olive dished up their meal. Only when his plate was in front of him did he put the paper to one side and pick up his knife and fork. They ate in the silence that permeated the house when Adam was home, a silence that was in no way a quiet, hushed thing but which vibrated with a dark energy that was alive. Even Alice felt it. Olive knew she did. Young as she was, her daughter seemed to instinctively understand that she must bring no attention to herself when her father was around. It was becoming more and more noticeable that Alice was afraid of him. This concerned Olive so much she’d mentioned it to her mother several times, but Cissy’s reply was always the same.