‘Mmm? Oh no. It’s the technical college. You can go there after you leave school to do all sorts of courses. Secretarial – that sort of thing.’

‘I say, El,’ Janice said, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘See that good-looking blond lad? He winked at me.’

‘Really?’ Ella answered absent-mindedly. As they walked on she glanced back to see the students laughing and talking as they walked towards town.

A college, eh? Where you could learn useful skills. And in Lincoln! Now that was worth thinking about.

Their stay in the city seemed to be over far too quickly. On the first evening they sat and talked with Peggy, and then climbed the stairs to share the big double bed in the spare room, giggling and whispering until the early hours.

The following evening Peggy took them to the theatre and they had a fish-and-chip supper afterwards.

‘What are you doing for Christmas, Aunty Peg?’ Ella asked her as they walked home through the wet streets, hurrying between the circles of light cast by the street lights.

‘How – how do you mean?’

‘Well, do you go to friends – or what?’

‘Er, no. I shall be on my own.’

‘Oh, that’s awful,’ said Janice, whose own home at Christmas was open house to family, friends, anyone who fancied dropping in. ‘Rough and ready,’ her mother always laughed. ‘But ya allus welcome.’ Janice couldn’t imagine anyone being entirely alone at Christmas.

Horrified too, Ella stood still, and because her arm was firmly linked through Peggy’s, the older woman was obliged to stop too. Ella peered at her through the gloom. ‘On your own!’ Her tone was scandalized.

‘Well, yes. I – I have been for the last six years, ever since . . .’ She left the words unspoken, but Ella knew exactly what she meant.

‘Well, you’re not going to be on your own this year. You’re to come to us at Fleethaven Point.’

‘But will your gran mind? Shouldn’t you ask her first?’

‘Course she won’t mind,’ Ella said, quashing any niggling doubts of her own. Besides, she thought, Grandpa would love to see his sister and her grandmother would agree to anything he wanted.

Arriving home she ran at once to find her grandfather. ‘Will Gran mind?’

‘Of course not. It was a lovely idea of yours. Fancy poor old Peg being on her own every year since . . . I never thought. We should have asked her over long ago.’

Ella doubted, however, that in the early days her grandmother would have agreed; she might have thought Ella would stow away in Peggy’s suitcase to get back to the city.

After her initial surprise, Esther was as enthusiastic as the other two. ‘If only we’d known, Jonathan, she could have come every year. I’ve always liked ya sister, even when . . .’ She glanced at him and seemed to bite back the words, adding instead, ‘Well – always.’