It was eleven o’clock when Rose arrived at the small market town of Birtley. She had caught a tram to the outskirts of Gateshead but had walked the last couple of miles along lanes deep in snow, and her boots and the bottom of her skirt and coat were sopping wet by the time she walked into the market square. She saw the Pig and Whistle public house immediately, a large whitewashed and thatched building with a battered sign of a pig prancing with a whistle in its snout.

The market place was a large open square and mostly cobbled, bordered on three sides by buildings of various kinds. It seemed to be divided in two from what she could see; on the far side there were a number of stalls selling vegetables, meat, flour and yeast, tea, sugar and other food, along with pedlars plying their wares from trays hung round their necks holding tapes and ribbons and trinkets. Closer to the Pig and Whistle it was clearer, just two farm carts standing side by side, both with middle-aged women selling baskets of eggs, cheese, cream and butter, and milk from large churns which they doled out to customers who had brought their own jugs and bottles.

The space immediately in front of the public house was empty apart from several men of various ages who were standing talking or sitting on the pub’s low stone wall, and a robust young woman with red cheeks who eyed Rose up and down as she walked towards her. When she was close enough, Rose said, ‘Is this where you stand for the hirings?’

‘Aye.’ The woman looked to be in her early thirties or late twenties, and she didn’t smile as she said, ‘Wouldn’t bother if I were you, not with the bairn.’

‘Aw, give over, Maggie.’ One of the men sitting on the wall had heard what she’d said, and now he addressed himself to Rose as he added, ‘You’ve got as much right to be here as anyone, lass. Don’t take no notice of her.’

‘You can shut up an’ all.’ The woman rounded on the man. ‘Worst day’s work I ever did, marrying you.’

‘You were keen enough at the time. Couldn’t get me down the aisle quick enough if I remember.’

‘That was when you were working for Farmer Tollett an’ I thought you were set up for life with the cottage an’ all.’

‘Not my fault he sold up and the new bloke had five sons to do the work. Blood’s thicker than water.’

‘Huh.’ The woman hitched up her ample breasts, pulling her shawl more tightly round her. Turning back to Rose, she said, ‘What you after?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What sort of work are you hopin’ for?’

‘Anything,’ Rose said truthfully.

‘Live-in?’

Rose nodded.

The woman’s hard eyes narrowed. ‘Got caught out with the bairn, did you? Some bloke do a runner?’

‘No, my husband died.’