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grandfather was the beginning of a refrain in his life which through all his years of growing up never ceased to be singing in the background. His days were shaped by the sound of his grandfather’s voice speaking the Bible. He knew the cadences of the verses, the rise and fall and occasional flash and spark, the monotonous, even rumble of the lists of kings and prophets, the thunder of the voice of God. His days and the time before he slept ran in tune with the verses, and though he rarely understood most of what he heard, he absorbed the spirit and sometimes the sense, and it left its mark upon him.

6
    â€˜ CLIVE, AW, COME on, come with me.’
    â€˜Stop your wheedling, girl,’ John Howker said amiably, but without lifting his face above the top of the paper or taking his Saturday-night pipe from his mouth.
    â€˜I said, now get off.’
    â€˜Clive . . .’
    â€˜Ask Arthur.’
    â€˜I want you.’
    Arthur shuffled his feet under the table, where he was repairing a lamp. The small parts were laid out on brown paper in careful order.
    â€˜Stop mithering your brother, Rose. Clive, you can walk her to the Legion.’ Evie was turning a hem.
    â€˜What girl gets her brother to walk her?’
    Rose gave up. She put on the green floral frock that had been Evie’s but which Evie had altered to fit her and dressed up a little with a frill round the neck and sleeves. She damped the ends of her hair so they would curl round the comb handle. It was a cold night for summer. The window was slightly open and she shut it, to keep the smell of soot out. But the smell of soot had long ago seeped into the walls and fresh air would never shift it. You tasted it in your mouth night and day until your food was seasoned with it and would have seemed strange without.
    â€˜Not later than ten,’ John Howker said as she went to the door. ‘Sharp.’
    â€˜
I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.
’
    â€˜Yes, Grandad, thank you.’
    Arthur had almost completed the reassembly of the lamp. Ted was lying on his stomach on the floor, reading an old book he had found in a barrow parked by someone’s gate, with damp, yellowed pages that stuck together and a red cover whose colour had come off onto his fingers.
Adventures with the Mounties
.
    Rose slipped smooth as silk out of the door. She was nervous, walking quickly along the terrace and down the slope that led to the Institute, keeping well in to the side, away from the pairs and small groups of others who were going the same way. She did not think ahead to what it would be like, only hoped that she might meet Mary, hoped she would not look foolish and make girls laugh at her behind their hands, boys turn their backs. There was a queue to go in, people funnelling through the doors and spreading out onto the path at the bottom of the steps. And then she saw Mary with Charlie just three ahead of her, and pushed her way through, to grab her by the arm. Mary shook her off without looking round.
    â€˜Mary?’
    â€˜Oh.’ Mary half glanced. ‘Yes. Hello, Rose.’ But then she turned away and leaned in to Charlie, whispering.
    Rose felt herself flush and for a halfpenny would have got out of the queue and run for home, hot with the anger and hurt of rejection and chilled by the shame of being alone. But the queue moved forward and she with it and she had no escape. She paid her money and was inside the hall, where shoes squeaked and bumped on the wooden floor and there was a stage with lights covered in red crêpe paper and a man with an accordion, another with an instrument Rose did not recognise. The room was filling. There was chatter. All the girls clustered together near the stage, with bunches of boys just inside the doors, where the bar was. Rose crept towards the girls, not looking at anyone. Mary and Charlie and another couple had moved towards the middle of