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was on our side he’d sit under the cherry tree, just sat there with his legs crossed, waggling them. Hardly ever said a word. Then sometime we kind of lost touch.
    That was up till the summer of 1935.
    That’s when I met him again, bathing. Well, I really had a date to go bathing with Erich. I was walking out with him then, but did he care about me? Not him. Spent the time playing cards with his mates. Over on the benches by the kiosk. So suddenly Josef turns up, I see him standing there.
    ‘Hello, remember me? I’m Josef,’ he said. I had to squint into the sunlight, so I didn’t recognize him straight off. Only when I looked closer.
    Erich, he didn’t have time for me anyway, so I just spent all afternoon talking to Josef. It was nice, but I didn’t fall in love with him, no. He was kind of, well, like,
there
, see?
    He sat on the rug with me. Told me how he was working on the railways as a shunter. Just like his dad. Shift work. ‘So what do you do?’ he asked. And I told him about my dressmaker’s training, how I don’t really fancy the job, but what else would I do? I’d need to be better at sums to be a salesgirl in the Co-op or work in an office. So there wasn’t much left, was there?
    In the evening, he walked me home, pushing his bike. It was an old Dixi, with balloon tyres. I remember it, yes.
    The bike was stolen afterwards, at least that’swhat he said. But that was much later. So he took me home, and when he made a date with me for the next Saturday I didn’t say no.
    And it was then it happened, I mean that Saturday. We’d gone out into the country, we went to Himmelreich on our bikes and when we were sitting on the grass he kissed me. It wasn’t romantic, rough more like. But I didn’t mind that. And then he wanted to go further, and I didn’t say no then either. So well, that’s when it happened.
    I’m not very choosy that way, never was.
    But when I never set eyes on him for several weeks afterwards, well, that did annoy me. All the same, when he suddenly turned up one day I went to bed with him again.
    ‘What’ve you been up to all this time?’ I asked.
    ‘Had a lot of work on,’ was all he said, and I couldn’t get any more out of him.
    I left it at that, didn’t ask no more questions. I mean, the whole thing hadn’t mattered to me all that much. Why would I want to ask more questions?
    Then in autumn that year I found I was up the spout.
    I’d hoped he’d take more care of me then, stick by me. But not him. Far from it. He didn’t change his ways one bit, dropped in whenever he fancied,then he neglected me and the baby too later. Hardly even looked at him. Let alone talking to the kid or playing with him.
    And when the maintenance payments stopped one day, just like that, I went to the Child Benefit Office. My mum and dad had persuaded me that was what I ought to do. At the Child Benefit Office they had his wages seized. Well, I needed the money, didn’t know what to do. Josef was angry, furious he was. That’s the first time in my life I was real scared of him.
    He was sitting on the bed in my room at my mum and dad’s when I got home from work. Waiting for me. Beside himself, he was. Threatened me and called me names.
    ‘How do I even know I’m the father? You could’ve just palmed the kid off on me.’
    I simply stood there crying. If my dad hadn’t of come into the room, if he hadn’t chucked Josef out of the place, well, I can’t say what I’d have done.
    So that looked like the end of it. ‘We’ll bring the kid up between us all,’ my dad said. So I didn’t see no more of Josef for a few weeks. He never came next or nigh me. And when I found I was up the spout again, it was me went to see him. I just didn’t know what else to do.
    *
     
    We married on 31 December 1937. It was snowing all day long. Why did I marry him? I’m not so sure myself. I guess I just wanted someone who’d pay for the baby, and I was more scared of being on my own than being