‘I reckon that you’re a proper man now you’ve got a full-time job,’ Alfie said, slipping into gear. ‘We should go to the pub, celebrate you not being a boy any longer.’

‘What, the Sailor’s Rest?’ asked Tommy, his voice rising in alarm. He’d never been in a pub and knew Kitty would have a fit if she found out – and if they went to the pub at the end of Empire Street, it was a one hundred per cent certainty that she would.

‘No, no, we can do better than that,’ said Alfie, not mentioning the real reason he didn’t want to go there – he’d been banned ages ago, after the poisonous meat episode.

‘Bent Nose Jake’s, then?’ Tommy asked. That was the second-nearest pub, and he knew Danny used to go there, but he’d said it was a bit rough. When Danny said somewhere was a bit rough, it was definitely true. It took a lot to shock Danny. Tommy wasn’t sure it was a place he particularly wanted to go to.

‘Trust me, Tommy,’ said Alfie easily. ‘No, you don’t want to go down there. I know a new place so we can have a nice private word. No chance of anyone from Empire Street seeing you – that’s what’s on your mind, isn’t it?’

Tommy muttered but didn’t want to admit it out loud. He’d sound like a boy, no matter what Alfie said. He gazed out of the window as the ruined streets of Bootle went by, so many of the houses damaged or destroyed by the raids of the blitz.

Alfie pulled off the dock road and on to a side street, coming to a halt by a brick building with a newly painted sign outside. Tommy squinted at it but the breeze had got up and the sign swung too much for him to pick out what was on it. Alfie didn’t want to wait around. ‘Come on, Tom. Get your skates on. Sooner we get inside, the sooner we can have something to warm us up good and proper.’

Tommy leapt out and Alfie urged him inside. It was a dimly lit room, with a wooden counter in the corner, and a couple of mirrors that hung behind it over some shelves which held a few bottles. Tommy thought that for his first pub, it was a bit miserable. Still, Alfie was buying.

‘What’s your poison?’

Tommy hesitated. He knew he should say lemonade, but he could get that from Kitty. ‘I’ll have a beer,’ he said boldly.

‘Pint of your finest,’ said Alfie to the barman with a broad wink. The barman glared at him but made no comment about Tommy’s age. ‘Come to think of it, make it two.’