May did not see a great deal of her. Patty lived in with the rest of the girls and during the dinner hour she was always hard at work; but on their Sunday afternoons off they explored the city together and May introduced her to some of her favourite places, beginning with St George’s Hall, whose splendour she never tired of. They went down to the pier head and watched the ferries come and go to Birkenhead, and saw the great ships gliding down the Mersey. And they went to tea rooms and indulged themselves with chocolate cakes.

One afternoon, as they watched the ships, Patty said, ‘Did you ever find out what happened to that brother of yours?’

‘I had a letter, back in the spring, from Australia of all places.’

‘Australia? Whatever was he doing there?’

‘I don’t know. He said he couldn’t tell me because it was a secret. But he did say he was on a Confederate ship.’

‘A Confederate ship? What would that be doing in Australia?’

‘Goodness knows.’

‘Anyway, the war’s been over for months now. Why hasn’t he come home?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he can’t. Perhaps he’s …’ May left the sentence unfinished.

‘I wonder how he got on that ship in the first place,’ Patty mused.

‘Well, you know he always wanted to go to sea. He had this mad idea of going to look for our dad. Maybe he thought that ship would take him to America. That was where he thought Dad might be.’

‘And instead he ended up in Australia. Poor old Gus!’

‘Oh, I don’t know. He seemed to be enjoying himself. He liked Melbourne. Maybe he decided to stay there.’

‘Yeah, well –’ Patty squeezed her arm ‘– as long as he’s happy, eh?’

One morning May was busy with a final fitting for one of her favourite customers. Mrs Breckenridge was a widow, left comfortably but not extravagantly off by her cotton-trader husband. She had no social pretensions but very good taste in clothes, and was very appreciative of May’s efforts. There was a tap on the door and one of the girls who worked on the shop floor in the ladies’ fashion department put her head round.

‘Excuse me, madam. I’m sorry to interrupt. May, Mrs Connor McBride is here. She wants to collect her hat.’

‘Today?’ May queried. ‘I told her it would be ready on Friday.’

‘She says she needs it for some event tomorrow.’