Rose smiled but didn’t reply; she didn’t want to talk and looked out of the window again. She didn’t know much about Gateshead other than that it was like most North-East towns and its industry centred on the river, with the inevitable rope and chemical works, slaughterhouses, ironworks and so on. Davey had read her a description of the Tyne once when the newspaper had done an article about a Mr Richard Heslop. It had tickled Davey what Mr Heslop had written:

There’s chemicals, copper, coal, clarts, coke an’ stone

Iron ships, wooden tugs, salt, an’ sawdust, an’ bone

Manure, an’ steam ingins, bar iron an’ vitrol,

Grunstans, an’ puddlers (Aa like to be litt’ral)

‘Now that’s proper poetry,’ he had said, grinning. ‘None of your mushy talk about love at first sight an’ suchlike.’

‘But you believe in love at first sight,’ she’d protested.

‘Aye, I do since I met you, but that’s personal like, not to be shared with every Tom, Dick and Harry by writing it down and letting folk read it. No, Heslop’s got it right in my book.’

‘You’re a philistine,’ she’d said, laughing, only to squeal as he’d caught hold of her and pulled her onto his lap, thereby finishing the conversation as he’d made love to her.

Her full lips tightened with pain, and like she did a hundred times a day, she thought, Davey, oh, Davey. The more she had gone over Nathaniel’s words the night he had kissed her, the more convinced she was that far from wanting to keep Davey’s memory alive, Nathaniel seemed determined to erase it. The way he’d talked about moving down South and letting people believe Betsy was his was chilling, and there was Davey’s own mam proposing that their child be brought up by Phyllis and Jack and that she be told in the future both her parents were dead.

‘You all right, lass?’

Her fellow passenger had spoken again and wiping her face clear of expression, Rose said quickly, ‘Yes, I’m fine. It was just a bit of a palaver getting our things together and catching the train, that’s all.’

‘Oh aye, it’s easier when they’re a bit older. I had two sets of twins under five at one point, now that was a game and a half, no mistake. On the go from dawn to dusk I was, and then Ken’d come in from work and cause high jinks if his meal wasn’t on the table. I told him he might work down the docks but I’d swap his job for mine any day. But that’s men all over and I have to say he’s not a drinker, I’ll give him that. Whereas my sister’s man . . .’