A Daughter's Hope

by Margaret Kaine

Genres: Sagas; Clean & Wholesome Romance; Historical Romance; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

When her loving but strict parents pass away, twenty-one-year-old Megan is left penniless and alone. However, for the first time in her life, she finally has the freedom to explore who she really is. She begins to come out of her shell, trying daring new things such as wearing makeup, buying modern clothes and going out dancing. Soon, she starts stepping out with a solid, dependable local man. And when she is taken under the wing of the wealthy Celia Bevington, she discovers that there is so much more to life than working as a paintress in the local pottery factory. But as she gets to know Nathan, a dashing American visitor, she starts to question whether she should be wanting more from life. On top of that, a mysterious silver hairbrush left to her by her late mother is about to lead to revelations that will turn her world upside down . . . When the chance comes to fulfil her every hope, will she find the courage to follow her heart? Readers are already being swept away by A DAUGHTER'S HOPE: 'The story will tug at your heartstrings . . . a page turner. Read it!' 'Margaret has a gift of captivating her readers' and holding their attention. Beautifully told with humour and sadness in equal measure. A brilliant read!' 'Beautifully written and captivating, I can highly recommend.' 'This is a beautifully told tale and there's a great feeling of time and place. Margaret Kaine has that storyteller's gift of grabbing the reader's attention and holding on.' 'Margaret Kaine writes with supreme skill. Thank you for a wonderful story, Margaret.' 'I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end' A Daughter's Hope was previously published as Song for a Butterfly

Release date: April 16, 2020

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 338

Sample

A child screamed and, hearing high-pitched yelps, Megan began to run until she saw, just inside a side road, two boys hurling stones at a tin can dragging down the tail of a petrified cowering puppy, its lead fastened to a lamp post. A small girl was sobbing in terror as she clung to nearby brown wooden fencing.

Incandescent with fury, Megan dropped her shopping and with a few long strides she grabbed one of the boys roughly by the shoulder. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? Stop that this minute!’ The other lad ignored her and lifted his arm to throw again so Megan reached out and caught him, too. ‘Don’t you dare, you little ruffian! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the pair of you. Now clear off, or I’ll fetch a policeman!’ Their knees grubby and scuffed beneath short trousers, they began to back off. ‘Go on, you heard me – scatter!’

When they had scarpered, Megan wasn’t sure which to comfort first, the frightened puppy or the devastated child. Tearful blue eyes won, though, and she went over to the little girl. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, they’ve gone now.’ Megan drew her into a warm hug. ‘There, it’s all over. Come on, let’s go and untie him.’

Gulping, the child nodded and seconds later, the tin can removed and the quivering puppy free, Megan bent down to stroke the soft fur and gazed down into its appealing velvety eyes. ‘I don’t think he’s badly hurt. What’s his name?’

‘Laddie. I had him for my birthday.’

‘Did you? You’re very lucky – I wish I had a dog. And what’s your name?’

‘Julie. They snatched the lead from me.’ Her lip began to tremble. ‘They’re naughty boys, aren’t they? I hate them.’

‘They’re very naughty boys, and you were a very brave girl!’

‘Julie!’ The shrill voice could have cracked a pane of glass, and made Megan jump. ‘I told you to stay in front of the house!’ Megan looked up to see a young woman hurrying towards them, her harassed face full of anger, but her expression soon changed to one of anxiety and concern as she saw her daughter’s distressed and blotchy face. ‘Whatever’s happened?’

Julie ran to hide her face in her mother’s apron. ‘It wasn’t my fault, they were bigger than me!’

Megan swiftly related what had happened.

‘Of all the cruel things … do you know who they were, Julie?’

She nodded.

‘Right. We’ll see what your dad has to say about this. They want a damn good hiding!’ She turned to Megan. ‘It’s a good thing you came along, I can’t thank you enough. And what do you say, Julie?’

‘Thank you!’ Julie gave a wavering smile and Megan watched them go, the puppy now scampering along the pavement, before collecting her bulky string shopping bags. After a morning’s work in a pottery factory, then hurrying home to see to her mother, these shopping trips late on Saturday, when the stallholders in Longton Market Hall had marked prices down, left little time for Megan to do anything else. What would she have done if she’d had a choice? As she trudged home she thought how wonderful it would have been to spend the afternoon in the park on a sunny day like this, strolling and perhaps reading beneath the shade of a tree. But her only hope of that was in a fantasy world.

‘Is that you, Megan?’ Ellen’s voice drifted down the stairs as soon as the front door opened.

‘Yes, Mum. I’ll be up in a minute with your tea.’ Beginning to unpack her shopping, Megan discovered that their eggs – still rationed in 1951 – were broken, their runny contents hopelessly mixed with bits of eggshell. ‘Damn!’ The expletive was muttered beneath her breath – even now, her father’s influence still lingered. Well, she couldn’t blame anyone else, she should have been more careful instead of just dumping the bags on the pavement; her mother needed all the nourishment she could get. Megan tipped the mess into the rubbish bin and as she waited for the kettle to boil, began to sing, ‘I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair’, knowing that lying in the silent room upstairs Ellen would hear the lilting tune.

It had been her mother’s one act of defiance against her strict husband’s wishes, her love of singing popular songs instead of only hymns. As for Megan herself, how many times had she been on the brink of rebelling against him, of going against the teachings of the chapel? She’d longed to go dancing, to have a boyfriend like other girls of her age. But that would have meant rows in the house and not only had her mother’s health been poor, she had always found any sort of confrontation so distressing that Megan hadn’t had the heart to upset her.

It was in the early hours of Sunday morning that Megan suddenly woke up. She wondered drowsily what had disturbed her, and then she heard the faint, strange sound. With her heart hammering in her chest she leapt out of bed to find Ellen fighting for breath, a harsh rasping coming from her lungs and in that one moment Megan knew. And she saw that same terrifying knowledge in her mother’s desperate eyes.

‘I’ll fetch the doctor!’ And then Megan was running again; only now it was not to rescue a puppy, but to save her mother’s life.

‘Beautiful dreamer …’

The poignant words rang out sweet and true as she brushed Ellen’s long, greying hair and gently buttoned up the collar of her thin cotton nightdress. Megan had no qualms about singing at such a time; Stephen Foster had been her mother’s favourite composer.

Going over to the dressing table where Ellen’s treasured silver-backed hairbrush lay gleaming in the early morning light, Megan wondered yet again why her mother had never used the beautiful object, always saying, ‘Your father gave it to me and it has sentimental value, not that I’m telling you why. Once you come of age, it’s yours.’ Now Megan picked it up and hesitated – after all, it was the only item of value in the house. But grief and compassion won. Going back to the bed with a last caring gesture, Megan placed the hairbrush carefully between her mother’s pale, folded hands. Then she turned to the window, where the doctor had closed the cheap rayon curtains before finally leaving. Megan had flung them back in defiance, wanting sunlight to flood into the room, to bathe in warmth for one last time the woman who had borne and nurtured her. But now, with her task finished and knowing that Ellen would have hated to flout convention, Megan once again shut out the light.

The woman waiting below looked up with relief as at last she heard Megan’s footsteps on the steep stairs. Seeing that her young neighbour was struggling to hold back tears, the buxom, comfortable looking Clarice Bath said, ‘The undertaker shouldn’t be long, love. They’re very good at the Co-op.’

‘At least we’ve got a plot in the cemetery.’ Megan’s father had died only two years previously in 1949. ‘I never thought I’d lose Mum as well – at least not so soon.’

Clarice gazed at Megan with sympathy. Ellen Cresswell had never been strong, the result of a childhood spent in a damp cottage in Goms Mill. But no matter how the doctor waffled on about pneumonia, it was a broken heart that had killed Megan’s mother – Clarice would stake her life on it. Ellen had adored that solemn husband of hers, but between both parents’ strict religious views and the dutiful care of her mother, Clarice had seen this girl’s youth slowly strangled. And those were years that could never be recovered. ‘You are all right for money? I mean – you’ve got enough to bury her?’

Megan nodded. ‘You’ve no need to worry, I’ll manage fine.’

Clarice hauled herself to her feet. ‘Well, I’d better be getting back.’ She paused and said gently, ‘Your mum had a good life on the whole, love. Try and remember that.’ But by the time she reached the door, Clarice wasn’t sure that was true. She had rarely come into this house; the Cresswells hadn’t welcomed visitors and had been fiercely protective of their privacy. And what a dreary place it was; there wasn’t a splash of colour anywhere. Both armchairs had scratched, scuffed wooden arms and flattened brown velveteen cushions, and the pegged rug that rested on faded beige linoleum before the pitted brass fender was almost threadbare. A square dining table with bulbous legs in the centre of the room was covered with a brown chenille cloth, while a dark wood sideboard displayed only a couple of Staffordshire dogs and a heavy glass vase filled with faded paper flowers. The house mustn’t have changed for years. Clarice hated leaving Megan alone there. But then, she thought with a sigh, the girl would have to get used to it.

It was much later, and not until after the undertaker had left, that Megan eventually went into the kitchen. She cut two rounds of bread and placed them beneath the heated grill and stared unseeingly at the fat-splashed wall behind the grey mottled stove. This small house was the only home she had ever known. And as she waited for her toast to brown, she could see the future stretching bleakly before her; one of a mere existence in this cramped kitchen with its chipped sink, wooden draining board and washing copper in one corner. And now in addition to her grief there was fear, because Megan was realistic enough to know that she could be in danger of losing even this.

It was not until a few weeks later that Megan at last told Clarice of her desperation. They were sitting by Clarice’s cosy hearth, where because of the late-summer chill, there was a warm fire. She always had a plentiful supply of coal because her husband was a miner at the nearby Florence Colliery. Tonight, Tom had gone off to a darts match at the Dunrobin public house and they both knew that he wouldn’t be home until after closing time.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Megan said in a voice tight with strain. ‘Mum’s pension made such a difference. My wages will cover the rent and bills, but food will be a constant struggle, and there’ll be nothing left for anything else.’

‘The pottery industry’s very low paid, especially for women – everyone knows that,’ Clarice said. She frowned. As the daughter of a sitting tenant at least the girl had a roof over her head, but that wouldn’t last long if she fell behind with the rent. Suppose she was ill and couldn’t work? There were no relatives, nobody she could turn to. ‘I don’t suppose there are any savings?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to pry love, but …’

Megan shook her head. ‘Dad had a bit in the Post Office, but after he died we had to use it. And I’ve only got a few pounds saved.’ She glanced across at Clarice and said, ‘I did wonder if I could get a better-paid job, in an office or something?’

‘I doubt it. You’d need qualifications for that.’

Megan thought with bitterness that if she’d been allowed to stay on at school, that wouldn’t have been a problem. She’d accepted having to leave at fourteen, knowing how sorely her wage was needed, although the prospect of working at the same hardware shop as her father – which he was insisting on – had appalled her. At least she’d stood up to him that time, although when she’d flatly refused to fall in with his wishes, saying that she’d arranged to go with her friend Audrey to ‘work on the pots’, he’d been furious. But as Audrey’s mother, who was a cup handler, had already ‘spoken’ for the two girls, even Les Cresswell had to accept defeat.

‘I’ve only ever worked in the decorating shop,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it was my own choice so I can’t complain.’

‘But you still like your work as a paintress?’

‘Yes, I suppose I do really.’ She laughed. ‘Do you remember how I used paint on white doilies on a piece of newspaper on your table? Maybe I knew all along where I’d end up. I get on well with the girls as well. We have many a good laugh and a sing-song. So at least I get plenty of company.’

Clarice was smiling. ‘It’s funny isn’t it, how everyone refers to women on a potbank as “girls”, no matter how old they are.’

Megan smiled. ‘And the term “potbank”, that’s local as well. Anyone else would call them factories.’

‘I know you’re an enameller,’ Clarice said, ‘but I’ve never really understood what that entailed. There’s a difference, isn’t there, between that and a freehand paintress?’

‘A freehand paintress is paid more! No, what I do is to follow a design. I have a sample and then when the ware has been glazed, I apply some of the colours to the pattern. For example, I might fill in the petals on a flower after the girl next to me has painted in the centre.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Clarice smiled at her and leaned forward to poke the fire. ‘Well, at least you’re looking better than when you came in. It always helps to talk to someone.’

‘Thanks, Clarice, I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

There was a short silence, then Megan said, ‘Anyway, that’s enough about my problems. Tell me how your Avril is.’

Clarice grimaced. ‘Not so good. She’s having a hard time with this pregnancy. I told her four kids was enough, but would she listen? Mind you, I blame that husband of hers.’ Her tone sharpened. ‘As she says, if it stands up he thinks he has to use it!’ Clarice clasped a hand to her mouth in dismay. ‘Sorry, love.’

Megan smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve heard worse.’

I bet it wasn’t at home, Clarice thought. There would have been no coarse talk or swearing in Les Cresswell’s household. But now she felt worried as she gazed at his daughter. Perhaps the girl would be able to manage, but she doubted it. Even by scrimping and saving, she’d struggle.

Megan stared with despondence into the fire. How she wished she had some relatives to turn to, but Ellen had been an only child. Her father had died at the Battle of Mons, and four years later her mother in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Les never talked of his family. Any questions from Megan as a child had been rebuffed. ‘There’s nobody for you to worry about.’ His tone had been sharp and she’d known better than to ask him again.

‘You know, our family doesn’t seem to have much luck,’ Megan said eventually.

Clarice, who was darning Tom’s socks, snipped the end of her wool and inserted the needle back into its pincushion. ‘You make your own luck in this life. Oh, I know most of it depends on the cards you’re dealt. But with a bit of effort you can sometimes turn them into a winning hand.’ Clarice put her mending down. ‘For a start, you could make more of yourself.’ There, she’d said the words she’d wanted to say for years. She rolled up the newly darned grey socks and put them to one side. ‘Why do you always wear such dull colours? They just wash you out. And your hair! It’s lovely and dark but the way you wear it …’ Clarice decided that it wasn’t the time for tact. ‘It’s more suitable for a schoolgirl than for a young woman of twenty. You should lose that parting in the middle for a start!’

‘It’s neat!’ Megan said, her hands moving to her hair defensively. She didn’t add that her father had held strong views about vanity.

‘And so it is – for kids! Look at the young princesses. Why don’t you try your hair like theirs.’ Clarice was growing impatient. ‘You’ve got your whole life before you, love. Do something with it, for God’s sake! Live it your own way, not the way your parents wanted you to. Go to the hairdressers, try a bit of make-up. If you’d been like all the other girls and gone out enjoying yourself, you would have done it long before this. Get yourself out there … you never know who you might meet!’

Megan stared again into the glowing embers of the fire, seeing before her the unwelcome image of a penny-pinching future – and a lonely one. She knew what Clarice was hinting at, of course she did. But was she ready to face the obvious solution – one that might cause her to lose her new-found independence and freedom?

A week later, Megan’s expression was obstinate as she sat facing her other next-door neighbour, the tense but efficient Rita Forrester. It had been Clarice who had suggested including her in the master plan to find a new life for Megan. ‘You’ll need all the help you can get now you’re on your own, so it’s best to include her,’ she had said. ‘Anyway, three heads are better than two.’

But now both women were staring at her with frustration. Eventually, Rita said, ‘Well, nobody’s going to come knocking at the door.’

‘I know, Rita!’ Megan said swiftly. ‘But as for going dancing, much as I’d like to, I haven’t got anyone to go with. And I can hardly go on my own, especially when I’ve never been before.’

And we all know who stopped you, Rita thought with irritation. Religion could be taken too far. There were plenty of chapel-goers who weren’t nearly so strict; her late cousin Fred, for one, even though he’d believed strongly in temperance. Her husband Jack had grumbled for days after Fred’s funeral. ‘I mean,’ he had said, ‘expecting folk to stand in a cold, wet churchyard, and not even a glass of sherry to look forward to!’ Rita herself was Church of England. She went twice a year, once to the Harvest Supper and then to see the crib at Christmas, and always did her Christian duty, giving to charity when she could, even if it was only a few pennies in a collection box. And in her opinion, that was enough religion for anyone.

‘Is there nobody at work you could go with?’

Megan shook her head. ‘I’m good friends with the girls, but they’re all older than me and mostly married. Audrey was the only one my age, and now she’s moved to Wales …’

‘What about the girls you knew at school?’

Megan thought about how she and Audrey had been such close friends. Too close, she realised now, allowing their shared link with the chapel to isolate them from the others. She gave a shrug. ‘Most of them are married, some even with babies.’

‘Well, we’ll have to think of something,’ Rita said. ‘But meantime there’s no point in you going anywhere wearing dowdy stuff like that.’

Clarice winced. Rita was known for her plain speaking but surely even she could have put it more kindly.

Stung, Megan looked down at the grey twinset she was wearing. Hair and make-up was one thing, she thought, but she couldn’t afford to buy a load of new clothes.

But Rita was in full flow. ‘It’s that drab it’s more suited to an old woman than a young one. Listen – you know my niece Shirley?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Well, she’s put a bit of weight on – a lot, to be honest. I bet she’s got quite a few things she can’t get into any more.’ Rita held up a hand. ‘Don’t look like that! I know she can dress a bit tarty … her mother’s told her so, but it’s her life when all’s said and done!’

Megan stared at her, remembering how she’d asked for a blue cardigan but instead Ellen had brought home the grey twinset from the market, saying that it was more practical. Shirley had had the backbone to stand up to her parents, to dress how she chose – why hadn’t she? But then, Megan thought grimly, Shirley hadn’t lived in the Cresswell household.

‘And our Alan’s girl, Debra, has just started at that hairdressers in Chaplin Road,’ Clarice was saying. ‘They won’t let her loose with a pair of scissors yet, but she’s dying to have a go. How about if I ask her to come and see you? She might be able to do something with your hair, and I bet she’d cut it for nothing – just for the experience.’

Megan had always cut her own hair, peering into the small mirror in her bedroom, trimming it with the kitchen scissors. But it did always seem to hang limply. ‘Are you sure she wouldn’t mind?’

‘She’ll be glad to.’ Clarice breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, at least we’ve made a start. Now, I don’t know about you two, but I could kill a cuppa.’

Obligingly, Megan got up and went into the kitchen. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she slumped back against the sink. Even after her mental struggle, she couldn’t believe what she was planning to do. Not that she’d let on to Clarice and Rita; they thought they were encouraging her simply to go out and enjoy herself, make new friends, maybe even find a boyfriend. Whereas Megan knew that her real intention was to blatantly search for someone to marry. Wanting a husband so that he could give her a more comfortable life could be interpreted as a respectable form of prostitution. But hadn’t upper-class girls always done it? Was it any less acceptable just because she was poor? But she wasn’t going to marry anyone unless she loved them. She wasn’t that desperate!

In the sitting room Clarice was looking at Rita for reassurance. ‘You don’t think we’re being too hard on her? I mean, it’s a bit soon after …’

Rita shook her head. ‘No. It’ll do her good to have something else to think about. Besides, you know as well as I do that she’s going to be really struggling for money – and soon. She can’t afford to mess about. You’ve never actually said to her have you, what we’re really after?’

‘For her to get married you mean?’

Rita nodded. ‘I can’t see any other way round it. We both know how little money there is coming in.’

‘I think it best not to put it into words. We don’t want it to look as if we’re interfering.’ She caught what she took as an ‘old-fashioned’ look from Rita and said, ‘Well, we’re not really, just …’

They both laughed, and then Rita said, ‘How could Les and Ellen not have any life insurance – not a single penny?’

‘I know – it beggars belief. Ellen wouldn’t even pay into a Christmas club. I suppose a burial policy was different; at least Megan had a payout from that.’

Clarice nodded. ‘Nobody wants a pauper’s grave.’ She paused. ‘You know, we’ll have to turn this chapel business to our advantage.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Sssh!’ Clarice turned as Megan came back into the room with a tray.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I’ve run out of biscuits.’

Rita and Clarice exchanged knowing glances, followed by silence as the serious business of pouring and drinking tea took place. Then Clarice put her cup down on to the saucer with a clatter. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something to say.’

Megan looked across at her, wariness in her eyes. ‘No need to worry, girl,’ Clarice said. ‘It’s just that where we’ve been going wrong is in forgetting that you don’t do the same things as other young people.’

‘Perhaps you’d let us know what you’re on about, Clarice!’ Rita, who prided herself on her smart appearance and secretly bleached her hair, raised her finely plucked eyebrows.

‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If Megan wants to go out and make new friends, and she won’t go dancing – at least not until she’s found someone to go with – then there’s only one alternative.’

Two pairs of puzzled eyes stared at her.

‘Church,’ Clarice said.

‘Church?’ Two voices echoed.

‘Yes, church or chapel or whatever you want to call it!’

‘But I go all the time, I know everyone there,’ Megan protested.

‘There’s more than one chapel, love. You always go to the same one, but there are lots of others. Go to them all. Have a look around the congregations. I’m sure you’ll soon find a friend, someone to go out with.’

‘Good Lord!’ Rita said. ‘You’ll be asking her to become a Jehovah’s Witness next!’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ Clarice retorted. ‘I used to work with one – a very decent woman. Tom nearly always brings one of their Watch Tower magazines back on a Friday night. I can’t see any harm in them myself.’ Clarice didn’t have any religious allegiance, but considered herself a better Christian than some, who in her opinion only went to church to show off their best clothes. Fashion didn’t interest her. She considered that she’d reached the age when to be a cosy mother and grandmother should be enough for any woman.

Megan was staring at them both. What if her father would have been against her attending any other chapel than their own? Why shouldn’t she? After all, what Clarice said did make sense.

Megan was discovering the heady fact that now she could do exactly what she wanted. Only the day before, remembering Clarice’s advice, she’d gone into Woolworth’s to stand before the cosmetics counter. The display of make-up was bewildering and eventually an assistant, young and blonde with a bright smile, had asked if she needed help.

‘I thought perhaps a lipstick?’ Megan said.

‘This one’s very popular at the moment,’ the girl said encouragingly.

She picked up a shiny gilt tube and expertly twisted it to show a tip of vivid red.

Megan stared at it. The term ‘scarlet woman’ came into her mind. ‘Perhaps a bit bright?’ she said doubtfully.

The girl gazed at her for one long moment. ‘Try this one,’ she said. ‘It would suit you, being dark.’ She showed Megan a soft pink. ‘Give me your hand.’ She slaked a smudge on the inside of Megan’s wrist. ‘Go to the door if you like, so you can see it in daylight.’

Megan walked out to the pavement and held up her wrist. Deciding she liked the colour, she went back into the shop, and after being reassured that Outdoor Girl was a good brand, handed over her money. But so far, apart from trying it on in her bedroom, she hadn’t used it. Her father’s words, ‘Paint and powder have no place in a decent family’, kept echoing in her mind. Ellen’s own skin, carefully preserved with Pond’s Cold Cream, had been one of pale modesty. At one time Megan had experimented with pinching her cheeks and biting her lips to redden them, but the effect had been so transient that it hardly seemed worth the effort. In any case, who had there been to see her? Visitors to the house were few, and at work there was nobody she cared to try to impress. The men on the potbank liked girls who flirted and joked with them, gave them ‘come hither’ looks, then slapped them down if they overstepped the mark. Megan was fully aware that they considered her quiet attitude boring.

Suddenly, as Clarice smiled at her with encouragement, Megan couldn’t wait to begin, to discover just what fate had to offer. It was time that she changed and, after all, didn’t she now have the freedom to do so?

If this, Megan thought, had been a story in a novel, then the man who had arrived late and sat beside her in the back pew at the unfamiliar chapel would have been young and handsome, rather than approaching seventy. Megan loved reading – at least the Cresswell household had believed in books – and she was familiar with authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontës and other writers Les considered to portray a moral view of life. Reading, he told her, was a form of self-education, and he believed in that too. But while some of the girls at the potbank borrowed books from the public library, Ellen had been firmly against it. Cleanliness was next to Godliness in her opinion and, as she pointed out, you never knew where the books had been. Just think of Snow White, she said. Snow White was Ellen’s nickname for a woman who lived in the next street whose toddler waddled about wearing a dirty vest and no nappy, while her dingy net curtains scandalised the whole neighbourhood. As a result, although she passed it nearly every day, Megan had never been inside Longton Library.

Now, back home and after failing to make a tiny lamb chop, mashed potatoes and a tin of garden peas resemble in any way the Sunday roast she’d been used to, Megan was just finishing the washing up when Clarice came round. ‘I can’t stop long,’ she said as she came in. ‘But I’m dying to know how you got on this morning.’

‘I did go to a different chapel,’ Megan told her, ‘but it was useless.’

‘What, no possible friends at all?’

Megan shook her head. ‘There were two girls of my age but they both had boyfriends with them.’ And, she thought, I didn’t see a single possible husband. She looked at the woman, who always wore her hair in the same way: scraped into a bun, its brown only lightly streaked with grey, and suddenly found her eyes filling with tears. ‘Just look at me – again!’ she said. ‘I sometimes wonder if it will ever stop.’

‘It will, love,’ Clarice reassured her. ‘Time’s a great healer.’

Megan had been told that so many times over the past few weeks that she could only hope the old saying was based on truth.

When the appointed evening arrived and the expected knock at the door came, Megan’s stomach knotted with nerves. She had never been into a hairdressing salon, although she’d often seen through their windows women sitting under hooded hairdryers, their tortured scalps covered by hairnets. Ellen had considered it vanity to pay someone to keep your hair neat. She’d worn her own long hair in a coronet of plaits and, until Megan was old enough to tend to her own, had cut her daughter’s hair herself.

Slim and perky, the fifteen-year-old girl smiled brightly at Megan through crimson lipstick. ‘I’m Debra! Gran asked me to come.’ Tottering on high heels, she followed Megan into the living room, where sheets of newspaper were spread on the floor in readiness around one of the dining chairs.

‘This is really kind of you,’ Megan said, desperately hoping the g