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in work at Doxford Shipyard - there had been three other sons too, but of the six who had been conscripted to fight in 1916, only three had returned after the war - could take care of her two sisters for a few hours, but Rosie hadn’t gone over the threshold then, mainly because the men hadn’t left for work.  
    ‘Hallo, lass. You want the missus?’ Arthur McLinnie had been eating his breakfast when she had opened the back door after knocking once, and his cheerful, gnome-like face had broken into a smile on seeing her. Rosie liked Mr McLinnie, he was small and wiry and possessed of a geniality that was indestructible, and the four oldest brothers were all right - big, rough, a bit over-boisterous at times but kind - but the youngest son, who was the same age as Sam and Davey, made Rosie feel . . . funny. He had a certain way of looking at her, she couldn’t explain it, but when Sam had told her a few months before not to be alone with Shane McLinnie, Rosie hadn’t argued, despite the fact that she had played with the McLinnie brood from a bairn and treated their house like her own.  
    ‘You’ll have a sup of tea afore you go, hinny?’ Annie was all alone now in her kitchen, which had none of the scrubbed cleanliness of next door but nevertheless was warm and cosy after the bitter chill outside. ‘An’ I’ve a nice bit of fat bacon if you’ve a mind for a bite?’ She indicated a large cut of meat lying amidst the havoc of what was obviously the remains of the men’s breakfasts, and as Rosie glanced at the glistening white mound, on which there was only a thin streak of pink, she just managed to suppress a shudder.  
    ‘No, no thank you. We’ve just had porridge.’  
    ‘A sup then?’  
    ‘I’d like to, Mrs McLinnie’ - it was true, she would like nothing more than to sit and talk with this old friend who had been like a second mother to her ever since she had first toddled into her kitchen as a tiny bairn, until Sam’s warning to her in the summer - ‘but I’ve no end to do, and I want to be back home before dark.’  
    ‘Aye, hinny, all right. The bairns’ll be looked after, you know that, an’ I’ll look in on your ma after a bit.’  
    ‘Thank you.’ The kindness had a weakening effect. It cut into the armour Rosie had to put on daily to cope with her private grief and pain whilst taking care of her mother and Molly and Hannah and trying to sort out the wreckage of their lives. She swallowed deeply before she said again, ‘Thank you.’  
    When she opened the front door the air was bitingly cold and there was a raw wind blowing that spoke of snow. Annie followed her onto the doorstep, glancing into the frozen street as she exclaimed, ‘By, by, it’s cold, lass. You go careful mind, it’s a sheet of glass out there. An’ Rosie?’  
    ‘Yes, Mrs McLinnie?’  
    ‘Don’t you take the world on your shoulders, you know what I mean, lass? Your mam’s a friend of mine as you well know, but it don’t make me blind neither. I know it’s early days an’ she’s still reelin’ under the shock of it all, an’ that’s understandable, but Jessie’s never bin one for facin’ what she don’t want to face. You get my drift? Your da had to be firm with her at times an’ weather the storm to sail into calmer waters.’  
    Rosie stared at the blunt northern face and the weakness assailed her more strongly, causing her to blink a few times before she could say, ‘She’s finding it very hard.’  
    ‘Aye, an’ so are you, I’ll be bound. There’s some folks who’re givers an’ some takers, an’ that’s what makes the world go round when all’s said an’ done, but it’s as well to recognize the fact, lass. It needn’t make any difference to the feelin’ you have for ’em, just the way you deal with ’em, eh, hinny? An’ while we’re talkin’ like this, I don’t know what’s made you a stranger to me door, an’ I don’t want to pry, but . . . is it anythin’