When Netta was not sewing bridal wear, she was sewing cushion covers and loose covers and decorating the little box room for Gus. Vida Bloom had pointed her to auction sales and house clearances where she picked up beds and a table, an oak linen chest and sideboard, a corner cupboard and a set of shelves for her son’s room. She distempered this in duck egg blue with gingham check curtains made from an old tablecloth, stuck transfers on the painted wood and fresh linoleum on the floor. Then she bought a pegged rug from her neighbour to cover the stone flags in the kitchen. The walls were three feet thick and she had to bend under the beams here and there, but outside she could breathe fresh air and step out of her gate along the terrace and up on to the moors to stretch her aching back.

Netta set up her treadle machine and ironing board in the front parlour with a sheet on the floor to protect all her sewing. There was no electricity connected but the range heated the water and she lived off griddle scones and oven stews. At the end of each weary day she could close her own front door and sew again by storm lamp, listening to records on the wind-up gramophone that Arnie had kindly donated to the cause.

It was through him that she heard where Dixie was performing and how he visited her on station platforms each Sunday while she crossed the country with her theatrical trunk to the next Variety revue. Sometimes he brought his music and gave Netta a rendition of his latest Jazz piece. He sometimes stood in for someone at the Cellar but his mother didn’t like him taking time off work the morning after so he pretended to be on some audit out of town and kipped down in Gus’s room. Everything was ready and prepared. All Netta wanted now was her own child under her roof.

*

It usually happened somewhere between Carlisle and Dumfries as the train rattled northwards along the Solway coast line. Then all Netta’s Griseley layers of confidence and purpose slipped away, along with her assurance that her plans were set fair for the future. Somewhere on that journey homewards her neatly pressed suit was exchanged for the cotton overalls of a subservient farmer’s daughter. But this time it was all going to be different for all her self-imposed targets had been met.