Betsy nodded. Her mam was wonderful. She wished now she had told her about Dora when all this had started a few weeks ago. She had gone to school in her new coat and Dora had called her stuck up and tried to snatch her woolly hat with the pom-poms, but it wasn’t until Dora had started on about her mam that she had got upset. Alice had said that Dora was jealous of her because she was pretty and Dora had got a face like a sow’s backside and to ignore her, but it was hard when Dora and her gang were forever surrounding her and saying things or trying to trip her up. She had seen Miss Walton watching once from her window and had thought the teacher might come out and stop the other girls, but she had just stood there, a slight smile on her face. Everyone was frightened of Dora, that was the thing, everyone except Alice. Alice had been lovely and she had made up her mind that she wasn’t going to have Flora and Sally as her best friends any more but Alice instead.

‘Now you have a nice day, hinny. You’ve all got your lunch bags?’ Rose asked, glancing at Alice and her sisters too. ‘Good. I’ll come for you later as usual,’ she said with a smile that belied how worked up she was inside. For her bairn to have gone through what she had because of her had cut her to the quick. She had said as much to Daisy, who had been vehement in her insistence that Bridget Finnigan and her sort were to blame, and although her head could see the logic of that her heart was another matter. She felt she’d failed Betsy, badly.

She walked back to the bakery through the snow that was beginning to fall, deep in thought, and once home asked Daisy to hold the fort for a while. A little while later she came down from the flat with a piece of paper in her hand. ‘This is for the shop window,’ she said, holding it out to her friend to read. ‘What do you think?’

Daisy took it from her with a questioning look, and read out loud:

‘To whom it may concern, and you know who you are. I have become aware of certain rumours circulating in the community and wish to state that I have bought this bakery with help from no one, and that I, and I alone, provide for my daughter and myself. I suggest that dirty-minded folk who assume otherwise should look to their own lives and stay clear of mine. Such people are not welcome to buy in this bakery from this day forth. To my other customers, it is business as usual.’

‘By, lass.’ Daisy raised her head. ‘This’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons.’

‘I hope so, Daisy. I do so hope so.’