‘Nooooo!’ Miguel moved his arm and placed the pillow over his head.

‘Go back to sleep,’ she cooed, kissing his shoulder, as he rolled on to his side. ‘I’m on an early.’ She left the bed carefully, trying to cause him the least amount of disturbance, and hit the shower. Her uniform, laundered in-house, lay under plastic wrap and hung on the back of the bathroom door. The sight of it brought back a memory of when she was no more than eleven. It had stuck in her mind as it was the first time she heard the name Loretta, cast into the room from her dad’s mouth in a torrent of anger. Mrs Mortimer had presented his wife with a uniform of starched cotton pinafore and a hat with a frill, which Heather had placed on the table, as if quite indifferent to them. Her dad, however, had raged at the mere sight of them.

‘There’s no way a wife of mine is wearing a get-up like that, and not for the likes of her! You can tell her to stick her job and her uniform where the sun don’t shine!’ he had yelled, and abandoned his supper of chicken pie and mashed potato, hitting the table with the flat of his palm so hard it caused the plate to jump. Thick gravy had spilled from the plate and run across the table on to the floor like a savoury, golden river. She and Ruby had been too shocked to move, staring at the little trickle and listening to the pleasing sound it made as it hit the wooden floor. ‘Where does she think she lives? Buckingham bloody Palace? She grew up in a caravan at the back of the bog! I won’t ’ave it!’

Her mum had calmly held her ground and turned her attention to her sewing. ‘I couldn’t care less what I wear. I’ll stick a turnip on my head if she likes. We need the money, Ben.’

This reminder of the fact that his fisherman’s wages alone weren’t enough to cover their living expenses did not help the cause. Her dad had grabbed the offending items and marched from the house. Merrin had no idea where they ended up, but suspected they were heaved into the fish-gut bin with a few choice words to send them on their way.