Bridget was filled with compassion. ‘Oh, Fan, I never knew. I’m so sorry. What about your father?’

Fanny laughed, a dry, harsh sound. ‘He didn’t die, but he might as well have. When it was just the two of us, he hardly spoke two words from one day to the next. At night, when I was in the back, I could hear him sobbing his heart out. If I tried to comfort him, he’d shrug me off. I’ve never forgotten how bad that felt. One day he lent me out to a market trader for sixpence. “Polish the apples and smile at the customers,” he told me, “and I’ll be back for you later.”’

‘He never came back, did he?’

‘No.’ Fanny gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘The old market trader took me in but he didn’t want me and neither did his missus.’

‘What happened, Fan?’ Bridget thought it a terrible thing. ‘Why did he never come back?’

‘Because he’d taken up with a woman from Burnley and thought I might cramp his style.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘One night I heard the market trader and his missus talking about me. The sixpence he gave my dad wasn’t for a lend. He actually sold me for that.’ She grunted, shaking her head. ‘Sixpence! That’s all I was worth to my dad, one bright, shiny sixpence.’ Taking a deep breath she went on, ‘The trader told his missus he wasn’t happy with me. “No good at selling fruit and veg,” he said, “but there’s many a desperate man who’d pay well for an hour or two with her.”’

Bridget had heard about these things, but never at first hand. ‘Dear God, what monsters!’

‘Fortunately for me his missus refused to be a part of it. Instead she pushed me out the back door with a bag of food and a shilling and told me to watch out for the bad men.’

‘Oh, Fan, no wonder you don’t trust anybody.’

‘It taught me a lesson, gal,’ came the answer. ‘From that day on, I knew I had no one but meself. One way or another, I managed to scrape a living. It was hard, but I survived. I learned how to hate and cheat and, yes, steal if I had to. I also learned how to play men off one against the other. But it cost me, gal. I could never make friends easily… never knew if they were out to hurt me or do me down.’

‘Fan, please, look at me.’ Reaching out, Bridget put her hands round Fanny’s face and turned her. When Fanny was looking into her eyes, she said softly, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you but I’m really glad you chose me for a friend. If I never had another friend in the whole world, it wouldn’t matter. Not as long as I had you.’

Bridget’s words were so moving, Fanny had no answer, but tears of gratitude shone in her eyes. ‘It’s time I got you home, gal,’ she said. And for the rest of the journey they were content just to sit beside each other, thinking their own thoughts.