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Griffin, I don’t know ’ow we’re going to manage with my Harry gone . . .’ Unable to hold back her emotion any longer, she burst into tears and Sal began sobbing as well. Maryann felt her own emotions swell inside her as if she might explode, but she wasn’t going to cry with him here! She folded her arms tight across her bony ribcage, pressing herself in.
    Mr Griffin leaned forwards, breathing loudly through his nose. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, now, now. I am sorry for your trouble, my dear. I do know what a terrible time this is for you . . . You know, I feel very sorry for you, a woman left to fend for ’erself with family. Now if you need any help – if there’s anything I can do for you . . .’
    Maryann squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Go away, you horrible smelly old man! her mind screamed. Get out of our dad’s chair, and out of our house!
    At last he stood up, seeming to take up half the room, and put his hat and coat on. Suddenly he turned and enacted a little bow towards Sal and Maryann.
    ‘Goodbye then, girls. You’ll help look after yer mother, now won’t yer?’ They sat, mute, not even meeting his eyes.
    ‘Thank you again, Mr Griffin,’ Flo said meekly. ‘I don’t know what to say, yer’ve been that good to us.’ She saw him to the door.
    ‘Goodbye, m’dear.’ Mr Griffin lingered for a moment. ‘Now don’t you go forgetting what I’ve said, will you?’
    Flo stood on the step, staring thoughtfully after him as he disappeared into the smoky gloom.

 
    Four
    December 1927
    ‘And where d’yer think you’re going?’
    Flo’s question was flung furiously across the room, through the paper streamers which hung in sagging loops from yesterday’s Christmas festivities, at Maryann, who was by the door, forcing her arms into the sleeves of her coat.
    ‘Out.’
    Flo advanced on her, hands still black from shovelling coal.
    ‘Oh no you ain’t, yer little madam. You get back ’ere and find a civil tongue for Norm – for Mr Griffin for once in yer life. ’E’ll be ’ere any minute and yer can sit there and be polite. There’s summat ’e wants to say to you all.’
    But Maryann was already out and across the yard, still pulling the coat round her, the door rattling shut in Flo’s face. It opened again.
    ‘You get back ’ere, yer uppity little cow!’
    Maryann disappeared at a run, down the entry to the street. She felt the cold come down on her like a weight, the raw air biting into her cheeks on this day of deep, silent midwinter. The cobbles were icy and the slates glazed with it: the sun hadn’t broken through all day. She pushed her hands deep into her pockets, thrusting her chin down. She had on a pair of Sal’s old stockings, held up with garters. Everything she had handed down from Sal was on the big side. She could feel the stockings wrinkling down her legs.
    Flo’s angry words seemed to propel Maryann along the road. ‘I’m not staying in there – not to see ’im ,’ she said out loud, her breath swirling away from her, thick and white.
    She turned down towards Nanny Firkin’s. In her left pocket she found a halfpenny, and gripped her hand round it, squeezing hard. She and her mom had never been what you’d call close, but nowadays all she ever seemed to be was on the wrong side of her. All year it had been like this, getting worse and worse. Since her dad had died and since Mr Griffin kept on coming round week after week bringing presents: joints of meat, cakes, thrusting bags of sweets under their noses, sitting himself by their fire on Sunday afternoons. He had even begun to take off his shoes and park them up against the fender as his socks steamed in the heat.
    Maryann knew exactly what Mr Griffin wanted to say that afternoon. She was sick at the thought, because it had been coming all year. He was going to sit there in the chair, her dad’s chair, with them waiting on him hand and foot. There’d be her mom’s, ‘Oh yes, Mr Griffin, no, Mr Griffin,’ which had