‘Don’t you go making her cry, now,’ he warned. ‘Just because she hasn’t started wailing the place down so far, doesn’t mean she isn’t going to any minute. I’m not having Rita blaming me for that.’

‘What nonsense you talk, Danny Callaghan,’ Sarah scolded him, and Danny reflected that between her and Kitty, he couldn’t do a thing right today.

‘See, here’s your Auntie Nancy come to say hello,’ he said to the sleeping child, and made a hasty escape over to where Eddy and Frank were making inroads into the rum bottle.

Nancy smiled sweetly, even though she was still a bit put out at having been passed over as a godmother in favour of her younger sister. But there was no point in taking it out on the child – it was hardly her fault. ‘She’s cute as a button and no mistake,’ she said. ‘Look at her little fingernails. There, when you’re grown up I’ll teach you how to paint them. That’s if you don’t turn out like your mammy and godmother, working too hard in jobs that don’t let you dress up.’

‘Nancy!’ Sarah objected, stung.

‘Oh, no offence,’ said Nancy lightly. ‘Lovely food, Sarah – did you help out with it?’

‘Of course,’ said Sarah. ‘You were too busy, I suppose.’

‘Well, Georgie won’t mind himself,’ said Nancy, leaving her younger sister to infer that she had been busy with childcare last night, when in fact Georgie had been round at the Parkers’ house again. Nancy had had her first proper date with Gary Trenton, and all she really wanted to do today was find a quiet corner and think about it. She shivered at the memory of him, his wonderful strong, lean hands holding hers across the table as they’d sat in a quiet pub miles from Bootle, where nobody would recognise her. He’d been such a gentleman, not trying anything on, but asking her all manner of questions about what she thought and what she was interested in.

She couldn’t remember when anyone had thought to ask her things like that. She could feel her sense of self-worth growing. With him she wasn’t the troublesome middle child whose siblings were all contributing to the war effort in far more demanding ways than helping out in a canteen; she wasn’t the bad mother that old Mrs Kerrigan painted her as; she wasn’t Gloria Arden’s less pretty sidekick. Gary made her feel as if she was a fascinating and attractive young woman, and she loved it.