‘You do understand, Netta, I’m trusting you with my boy. He’s not for you, I hope you realise there can be no matchmaking? He’s spoken for. He must marry into his faith with a suitable girl, someone who can share his interests. He’s still got a lot of exams, there must be no distractions.’

Netta smiled to herself at this broad hint. Arnie had raised his thick black eyebrows in her direction once or twice but she had soon cooled his interest with little sisterly put downs and teasings. He was not on her hit list of possible suitors. Interest in him could never exist in her scheme of things for there was only one man in her life and he was two hundred miles away in his cot!

He seems so tired with it all. No time for his music now and he was so good at his clarinet,’ Netta ventured.

‘Just a hobby, Netta, music’s his hobby. Business is where the money lies: qualifications, articles and charters. He’ll make his mother so proud! When your boy grows to be a man, you’ll understand. You want only what’s best for them and mother knows best! I hope you don’t mind being disappointed? I wondered when you came at first if it was to see my son again, you were awful pally in the war?’

‘We were children, babes then. Now it’s different. I know my place.’

‘Now you’re offended. Like I say, it’s all for the best. But we’re friends and we work well together, yes?’

Netta shrugged her shoulders. ‘Aye, Mistress Bloom, there have to be rules.’

*

Arnie chose to let his hair down for a change, rejecting a piano recital in favour of the latest revue at the City Variety Theatre in Leeds. It was a famous little theatre, a compact smoky atmosphere where the punters yelled and cheered if they liked an act and bawled if they didn’t. It was the usual mixed bill: comic turns, animal acts, dancers and singers and acrobats. One of the speciality acts was Karenza the Snake Woman, a contortionist who slithered on to the stage in a snakeskin body suit while an exotic-looking man in oriental costume played some pipes. What a figure the artist had and could she twist her body and put her legs where legs were never meant to go! It made Netta’s bones creak just watching her.

At the end of her act Karenza stood up and took a well-deserved bow before the audience, whipping off her mask and skullcap. Out popped a cascade of bleached blonde hair in bunches and Netta recognised instantly who it was: Wilma Dixey. It must be.