‘I can’t stay, Phil,’ she said. ‘I can’t go on like this. You’ll never change. I thought at first I could make you happy, but now I don’t know if you even want to be happy. It’s easier for you to be the underdog, the one who’s hard done by, the one who prefers to think his younger daughter is not his own. You’ve chosen that road and I don’t want to be on it with you any longer.’

She put her hands over her face and wept pitifully for a few moments. Then she swiped the tears from her face and straightened her back.

‘Tom asked me to go to him a bit since, but I wanted to give our marriage another – yet another – chance. Now you’ve had your chances. I’ve done nowt wrong today that you should take your belt to me, and Ellen hasn’t either. I’m done with you, Phil.’

She turned to Ellen. ‘Go and get what you need, love, and we’ll come back for the rest.’

‘If you go to Tom you are never setting foot in this house again,’ Philip snarled. ‘Either of you.’

‘Then we’ll take what we can tonight and lose the rest. What are a few bits of stuff compared to being beaten? Nellie, go and do as I ask, please.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ Ellen whispered, her eyes full of tears. She went heavily upstairs and Dora, Tom and Philip waited without speaking, hearing drawers and cupboard doors being slammed. In a few minutes she returned downstairs with two bulging bags.

‘We’re going now,’ said Tom. ‘If you make any trouble, I promise you I shall tell everyone how you’ve treated Dora and the girls. It’s quite possible the Beveridges are only keeping you on at the farm out of respect for Dora and Ellen. I’d think on it, if I were you.’

Dora and Ellen put on their macs and boots and carried their shoes and umbrellas while Tom took up a bag in each hand. Silently, in the gathering twilight, a watery pink sunset behind them, they set off up the lane like a little party of refugees.

‘You’ll be back!’ yelled Phil.

No one even turned to acknowledge him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JAMES DREW UP by a pub called the Duke of Clarence on the outskirts of Preston.

‘Why have we come all this way for a drink?’ Gina asked. ‘We’ve passed quite a few other pubs.’ She had noticed every painted sign and hoped at each that James would stop. She had cramp in one leg from being squashed into the little car, and James drove so fast that she felt queasy.

‘A friend told me it was a good one,’ James said, and came round to help her out of the car. Then he opened the tiny boot and took out the little canvas bag.