‘The bugger deserves a thrashing!’

‘Hey, watch your language afront of the little ones,’ warned Molly with good humour. ‘Come on, eat your breakfast and don’t look so shocked… I’m not about to drop it here and now!’ she laughingly reassured him.

‘It wouldn’t matter if you did, Molly darling… you know it would be made welcome.’ There was a world of love in his voice.

‘I know.’ Long, slim fingers reached out to cover his hand in a warm gesture. ‘You’re a good friend to me and my bairns, Mick Darcy,’ Molly murmured, ‘and there’s nobody else I’d ever share my troubles with. I can’t deny what you say… Jack will never be any good… he’ll always gamble his money away; he’ll drift from place to place like the vagabond he is, and I know in my heart that there’s no future for us together… he’s not the kind to put down roots. But I love him. And I can’t help the way I feel. Oh, it’s not so bad… I can put up with his coming and going, and his gambling, because I know he’ll aways come back, to hold me in his arms and tell me there’s no other woman for him. It’s only crumbs, I know… but it’s all he can give, and it’s enough. So long as he’s faithful, and there’s no other woman in his arms, I’ll put up with all his failings.’

‘And if there ever was another woman?’ Mick had no reason to believe that Jack had deceived the trusting Molly, but the fellow was a worthless bounder who was capable of anything.

For a while, Molly remained silent, pushing the curled bacon round her plate with the prongs of the fork and deeply considering Mick’s question. Of a sudden, she stabbed the fork into the bacon and raised her black, tempestuous eyes to his. ‘I’d kill the pair of them,’ she said with alarming calmness; after which she went on to finish her breakfast as though the subject had never arisen. All the same, her hands were trembling and her heart was beating furiously inside her at the thought of some other woman in her Jack’s arms.

‘I can’t think how you ever got tangled up with the likes of him… you never have told me the full story.’ Mick had seen the pain in Molly’s eyes, and he called himself all kinds of a fool for having planted the seed of doubt in her mind with regard to her fellow. All the same though, he knew that Molly was no fool. The idea that Jack had ample opportunity to be unfaithful to her must have presented itself. ‘You do realize that one of these days, Molly… he just may not come back?’ Somewhere, in his deepest heart, he prayed for that day, but then he was filled with remorse, knowing how devastated Molly would be if ever Jack finally deserted her. He couldn’t understand how she went on forgiving this man who used her badly at every turn. But then, love was a funny, unpredictable thing. Look at him, for example. Look how he adored Molly beyond all else, knowing that she would never look at any man other than Jack; Jack, who had lumbered her with three kids, and left her to fend for them as best she could, knowing full well that every time he went away there was always the danger that Molly and the young ’uns could be thrown on to the streets. However, if the truth were told, eviction might turn out to be the lesser of two evils, because that grim, God-forsaken place on Dock Street could never be called ‘home’. If Molly were to lose that place she only had to ask and he would gladly take her in. But she wouldn’t ask. He knew that, and it saddened him. Yet in spite of everything, he still loved and wanted her. So when it came right down to it, he did understand how one soul could adore another, even if it were a lost cause.