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thinker, and he knew very well that there was no need for him to scrape a meagre living underground, but now it occurred to her that he would perhaps do it, just to hurt her.
    ‘Seth doesn’t say a lot to me,’ was all she said, though, to Amos.
    ‘No, well, like ’is father. A man o’ few words.’
    Like Arthur, and not like, thought Eve. Her late husband never made her feel, as Seth did now, that all her decisions were selfish ones. He was a carbon copy in appearance though, and – just like Arthur – a devil for clamming up when something troubled him. Even now, nearly eighteen months after his dad had been killed in a rockfall at New Mill Colliery, Eve was certain that somewhere within Seth, buried like the coal under its protective layers of rock and shale, lay an untapped seam of grief.
    ‘Do you think ’e wants to do it for Arthur?’ she said, hope suddenly springing forth that Seth might be motivated by love for his father rather than by resentment towards her.
    ‘Aye, ’appen so.’
    Amos replaced his cap as he spoke, a signal to Eve, subtle but unmistakable, that his involvement in the problem was ended now that he had passed it on to her. This, Eve had found, was the price she had paid for turning him down. There was a time he would have done anything for her and her small family. Now, and not unreasonably, there were limits to his generosity and concern. But he still worked the allotment with Seth as often as his new job at the miners’ union allowed, and for that Eve was grateful.
    ‘Well, thanks, Amos, for lettin’ me know. And for t’fruit an’ veg. It’s what folk keep coming back for, y’know, that home-grown produce.’
    He smiled. ‘I think it might ’ave more to do with what you do wi’ it after I’ve picked it,’ he said.
    She stood to go back downstairs with him. ‘Well, take summat ’ome with you. There’s plenty ready.’
    They walked together across the dining room. The windows, six of them, elegantly arched and draped in soft muslin, flooded the long room with light and the polished wooden floor gleamed honey-coloured underfoot. There were jugs of sweet peas on the tables, and blue and white cloths made from old linen flour sacks that Anna had found stashed in a chest in a forgotten corner. The effect was charming.
    ‘You’ve worked wonders up ’ere,’ said Amos. He remembered its beginnings, when the earl first proposed it as the place for Eve to expand her business: an abandoned storeroom in the disused flour mill, the floor thick with bird droppings, the beams chock-full of roosting pigeons.
    ‘It’s Anna’s work, mostly,’ Eve said. ‘She ’as an eye for this sort of thing. She’s a demon with that sewing machine.’
    Ginger, standing at the foot of the stairs, called up: ‘Eve, there’s a wooden crate been delivered. Is it summat we’re expectin’?’
    They joined her downstairs, their progress at the bottom impeded by the large crate in question. Its lid was nailed shut and across the top, stamped in black ink, it said MRS A. WILLIAMS, NETHERWOOD, YORKSHIRE. That was all. They stood for a moment, staring. It had the look of a crate that had travelled some distance to be here.
    ‘Now then,’ Eve said, puzzled. ‘Amos?’
    ‘Nowt to do wi’ me,’ he said. But he was curious enough to linger while Nellie – this was her kind of job – prised off the lid in short order with a sturdy steel knife. A thick layer of straw hid the contents and Ginger stepped back, as if something alive, or explosive, might be revealed beneath. Alice, still peeling, watched from the safety of the sink.
    ‘Go on,’ said Eve to Nellie, who didn’t need asking twice and pulled with two hands at the blanket of straw.
    They all stared.
    ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ said Nellie.
    ‘Bananas,’ Ginger said.
    And they were. Hand after hand of yellow bananas, each layer protected from the next by more straw. At the sink Alice, overcome with mute astonishment, dropped her