Connie moistened her lips. Why wouldn’t this woman leave her alone? If only she hadn’t spoken to her in the first place. She should have found someone else to confide in.

Dorothy was still talking. ‘There are couples who are desperate for their own child. Good people who will give your baby a far better life than you could. They have money, status, all the things that people like us don’t have.’

People like us. Connie stared back at her. She didn’t feel remotely connected to Dorothy.

‘I only ask that you think about it,’ said Dorothy. ‘Please don’t shackle my son.’

She turned, clearly deciding she’d said her piece, and headed down the stairs. Instead of following, Connie opened the door to the flat and stepped inside; the shop and her father would have to wait. She leaned against the wall, heart thumping. A film of sweat had gathered on her forehead. In the last few weeks, her inner temperature had rocketed. The vomiting had stopped, but smells still set her off: sour milk, Victor’s aftershave. The sickly scent of Dorothy’s breath. She sat down, head in her hands. Dorothy’s loyalties lay with her son. A mother would do anything for her child.

Closing her eyes, she tried to conjure Johnny’s face. The image blurred even though it had only been a few months. That last time, the day before he left, it was incredible to think she had been pregnant. Cells multiplying. Her body creating while she had lain motionless beside him. She groaned, feeling her loss as a wrenching pain. She had to see Johnny. He would write. She knew he would, but in the meantime, she must find a way to buy a ticket to Paris. Rousing herself, she went into her bedroom and took out her mother’s jewellery box.

The bell jangled as she went inside the shop. Harry was balancing on a stool behind the counter. He wore a black jumper, his usual drainpipes and a checked flat-cap.

‘Connie,’ he said, almost toppling from his perch when he saw her. ‘I’ve missed you.’

He dragged off the cap and held it over his heart. He was known for his hats. His father had been a hatmaker. A gambler too. When Harry was small, the shop had gone bust. Harry’s father had disappeared and the bailiffs had come. But wily Harry had hidden a stack of the hats and when his mother had begged and borrowed and built up a grocer’s to replace the hat shop, Harry had worn them to remember.

His mother emerged from the back. Short and round, the reverse of her son, she shot Connie a suspicious look before asking after her father.

‘He’s not too bad, thank you for asking, Mrs Hachette.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ She busied herself, stocking a shelf with tins of corned beef, eyeing Connie through the display.