‘Mum about?’

‘Out. Working.’

‘Where’s June?’

‘Same.’

‘Oh.’ Thank God for small mercies. June would laugh her tits off to think that Dora was having any sort of trouble with her new charmed life. At least Lil actually had a heart, even if it was a pretty stony one. ‘You’ve had a kid . . .’ she started.

‘Yeah! Don’t I know it,’ said Lil with a smile, wiping the little boy’s chin with her dress.

‘Frank – my new feller – he hit me last night. In the stomach. And I’m in the family way.’

The smile was wiped off Lil’s face in an instant. ‘You’re what? And he . . . ?’

‘Frank wants me to get rid of it. But I won’t. Only . . . he hit me. Look.’ Dora stood up, rolled up her skirt and full-length petticoat to show her middle, which was black with bruising.

‘Oh shit,’ breathed Lil.

‘The baby’s Dickie Cole’s.’

‘Bloody hell. He’s in the nick!’

‘I told Frank the truth about it. I didn’t want to lie. And he went mental.’ Dora paused, gulping, fighting back tears. ‘You’ve had a kid so you know about these things. I bled a bit. Not much. Could the kid be hurt?’

‘Just a bit?’

Dora nodded.

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Lil shushed her own baby, who was winding up to another full-blown wail. ‘They’re tough little bastards, believe it or not. What the fuck you going to do then, Dor?’

Dora thought of Frank. Of Dickie. Of the mess she was in.

‘I’m going to leave Frank,’ she said.

The statement popped out of her mouth, unannounced to her brain. Well, what else could she do? She had some more cash put aside now – Frank was nothing if not generous, and she’d been careful to tuck some money away, keep a little fuck-you cash, not spend it all. She had her little hoard of gifts to take with her and sell if need be. She’d be OK.

‘Go up to Aunt Min’s,’ said Lil.

Christ! What a prospect. Aunt Min was Mum’s older sister, and they rarely saw her. When they did, when she came down to the Smoke, they could never wait for her to bugger off up north again. She was all disapproval and lording it over them, hand-wringing with fake concern over her sister Freda’s obvious poverty, married to a bin man, when she had done so well for herself, marrying a Yorkshire farmer who was on the board of the Ministry of Agriculture and had copped for a thousand acres of prime arable land off his dad when the old man passed away.

‘It’s a good long way away,’ Lil reminded her. ‘We all know she’s a cow, but Aunt Min’s very proper, ain’t she? She won’t turn you away, you’re family. She’ll do what’s right by you. And it might be for the best, you know. Take yourself off somewhere, have the kid and get it adopted . . .’