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his arm around her waist, they would glide around the lounge to the sounds of Perry Como and Frankie Laine. She wished those afternoons could last forever.

4

    May 1953
    â€˜I haven’t got all day you know,’ said the shopkeeper as Jenny’s eyes darted around the penny box. Her fingers closed around the pink flying saucer.
    â€˜Anything else?’ he said, peering over his round spectacles.
    â€˜Twenty Weights, please,’ Jenny looked up at him and added, ‘for my dad.’ But he was already slapping the packet down on the counter.
    â€˜That will be two shillings and seven pence.’
    The small parade of shops stood in the centre of the estate, halfway between the school and Jenny’s home. It was late May, and the Whitsun school holiday. Jenny dawdled down the hill sucking the sherbet from its outer casing. The semi-detached houses that lined both sides of the road were occupied by families; a father, a mother, and two or three children. One prolific couple, with ten children, were allocated two semi-detached houses with a connecting door. The flats lay on the perimeter of the estate. First-floor flats were for families with one child. The ground-floor flats for older couples, or widows. Jenny stood and watched as a girl turned a skipping rope tied to the lamppost. It was Pamela Edwards, who was in her class. Another girl, who Jenny recognised as being in the year below, was breathlessly counting her jumps. With each leap her dress billowed like a tiny parachute, her thin legs hanging like cords.
    â€˜Hello,’ said Jenny.
    â€˜Do you want a go?’ asked Pamela.
    Jenny shook her head and continued to suck her sherbet.
    â€˜Eighty-one, that’s my highest so far,’ the younger girl gasped; the rope slack between her legs.
    Pamela turned to Jenny, the handle clattering onto the pavement. ‘I’ve got to go in now. Do you want to help me bathe my baby brother?’ She was the second eldest of a family of six. Her sister Patricia was in the year below, and her brother Philip the year below that. There was also an older brother of around twelve called Peter. All the children’s names began with the letter P and Jenny imagined that they would continue multiplying until they ran out of names.
    Jenny followed Pamela as she walked up the garden path dragging her left leg behind her. She wore a heavy high laced leather boot. Attached to the boot was a pair of metal callipers that reached to her knee. She had told everyone that she had polio when she was younger, and had spent a year in a long box like a coffin, that breathed for her.
    Screams bombarded Jenny’s ears. The younger children were laughing and chasing each other around the kitchen table. The toddler was naked from the waist down. They ignored the screams from the large black pram beside the boiler. Pamela nimbly avoided a full potty and the coloured play bricks that lay scattered across the floor. She went over to the pram. Jenny followed and peered inside. ‘Does he always cry so loudly?’
    â€˜Only when he’s hungry; and that’s quite often.’
    Paul, the latest addition to the family, lay red-faced and kicking, clad only in an off-white nappy and vest. Pamela scooped him up and thrust him into Jenny’s arms, before disappearing through the side door and returning with a galvanised tin bath. Placing the bath on the Formica table she began filling it with jugs of hot and cold water. Jenny thought that although they were the same age, Pamela appeared years older; a housewife in miniature. She lay the baby on a threadbare towel, deftly undid the buttons on his vest and unpinned his nappy. Jenny’s nose wrinkled. Once cleaned, Paul was lowered into the water. He immediately stopped crying. Huge blue eyes focused on Jenny as Pamela rubbed him with a bar of soap.
    â€˜You can wash the soap off now if you like?’
    â€˜Like this?’ Jenny scooped up the water in her