Three Bites of the Cherry

by Emma Blair

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Georgie Mair's first husband's dies tragically from leukaemia. Three years later love comes once more into her life. Charlie Gunn saves her after an explosion in the factory at work. Like her, Charlie is widowed with a young child. As their relationship blossoms into marriage, it seems to Georgie that this second chance is almost too good to be true. It is. And soon Georgie finds herself taking the only route possible. Shocking the staid community, she separates from him. But the community would have been far more shocked if they know what Lena was now up to. For in the new era of jazz and at the dawn of a Labour government, life is changing all around . . . And then it changes again for Georgie. She meets Bill Bailey. He is everything Charlie was not. But will she be able to find, with Bill, the same sort of bliss she had found with John? Or will this third bite at the cherry be something completely different? Praise for Emma Blair: 'An engaging novel and the characters are endearing - a good holiday read' Historical Novels Review 'All the tragedy and passion you could hope for . . . Brilliant' The Bookseller 'Romantic fiction pure and simple and the best sort - direct, warm and hugely readable. Women's fiction at an excellent level' Publishing News 'Emma Blair explores the complex and difficult nature of human emotions in this passionately written novel' Edinburgh Evening News 'Entertaining romantic fiction' Historical Novels Review '[Emma Blair] is well worth recommending' The Bookseller

Release date: November 24, 2016

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 416

Sample

John Mair came bolt upright as his wife’s scream brought him abruptly awake. He stared at her in the darkness of their bedroom. She too was sitting up.

‘Dear God, Georgie, what’s wrong?’ he asked, reaching out and placing a hand on her arm.

The screaming stopped as she shuddered into consciousness.

‘Georgie?’ he queried softly, feeling her trembling under his touch.

Georgie took a deep breath, followed by another, then seemed to collapse forward on to herself. ‘Awful. Terrible,’ she muttered in a strangulated voice.

Squirming closer, John put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Did you have a nightmare?’

She nodded confirmation.

‘Bad, eh?’

Georgie turned to face him, gazing at him out of huge, frightened eyes. ‘It was about you.’

‘Me?’

‘I … I …’ She trailed off, and gulped in more air.

‘I’m here, darling. There’s no need to be afraid.’

Tears appeared and spilled down her cheeks. Then she was hugging him tightly, clutching at him, as though afraid he might somehow disappear. Vanish in a puff of smoke like some will-o’-the-wisp. John could feel her heart thumping in her chest.

‘Tell me, Georgie. Tell me what it was all about.’

‘It was terrible,’ she said hoarsely.

‘You’ve already said that.’

‘I was in a room. A very gloomy room lit only by a couple of candles. And …’

‘And what?’ he prompted when her voice again trailed off.

‘Oh, Jesus, John. It was so real. I was convinced it was actually happening. That I was there. With you.’

He frowned. Whatever the dream had been, it had really shaken her. He couldn’t remember ever having seen her this upset before. The love he felt for her welled inside him in sympathy. ‘What was I doing, then?’

‘Nothing. You were dead.’

That rattled him. ‘Dead?’

‘And in your coffin. Your eyes were closed, your complexion a sort of milky colour. You were wearing your suit, best white shirt and red tie, and your hands were folded in front of you.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered. She was right. It was horrible.

‘I started to scream …’

‘You did that all right,’ he interjected. ‘It’s what woke me up.’

‘You mean I actually did?’

‘Oh yes. I can assure you of that.’

A new thought came to her. ‘I hope I didn’t wake Ian as well. You know how light a sleeper he can be at times.’

Ian was their five-year-old son, and only child so far, sleeping in the kitchen. They both listened, but heard nothing.

‘I’d better check,’ Georgie said.

John knew there was no point in arguing. She’d never settle down again unless she went to look. He nodded. ‘On you go.’

Georgie swung her legs out from under the covers and shrugged into her dark-green candlewick dressing gown. Silently she padded from the room.

John lit his bedside candle and reached for his cigarettes. A few moments later he was re-joined by his wife, who slipped back into bed again. ‘He’s fine,’ she announced. ‘Sleeping sound as can be.’

‘Good.’

‘It would be a bad night to disturb him, with his starting school in the morning.’

‘Aye,’ John agreed.

‘Can I have a puff of that fag?’

‘Help yourself,’ he replied, handing it over.

Georgie took several deep drags, then returned it. ‘I needed that. Though you know I don’t agree with smoking in bed.’

John smiled wryly. It was an old bone of contention between them. ‘Feeling better now?’

‘A bit.’

She wiped her face, where the tears had now dried. A glance at the clock on the bedside table informed her it was a little past midnight.

‘Dead and in my coffin, eh?’ he joked, trying to cheer her up.

She nodded.

‘And all dolled up like a dish of fish?’

That annoyed her. ‘Stop it, John. It was anything but funny. As I said, it was ever so real.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She stared at him. ‘No, you’re not. I can see it in your face.’

John ground out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray, thinking how beautiful his wife looked, even distraught as she was. A wave of warmth and tenderness swept through him. Not for the first time he told himself how lucky he was to have met and married Georgina McKeand. If ever a couple were right for one another, they were, in his opinion.

‘I wonder why you dreamt what you did,’ he said.

She shook her head, not having an answer.

‘Well, you know what they say.’

‘What?’

‘That dreams never come true.’

‘Do they really say that?’

‘You mean you’ve never heard it before?’

‘No.’

‘Well, they do. So there. Anyway,’ he tapped his chest, ‘just look at me. You’ll go a long way to find a healthier specimen. Isn’t that so?’

She had to admit it was true. Why, she couldn’t even recall the last time he had had a cold, let alone anything worse. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted.

‘There then. It was probably that cheese you ate earlier gave you the nightmare. You shouldn’t have had it so late on.’

It might well have been the cheese, she reflected. But why that particular nightmare? There was absolutely no reason for it. At least, none she could think of.

Reaching over, he ran the tips of his fingers down her cheek. ‘Ready for sleep again?’

‘Just about.’

‘Would a cuddle help?’

Despite herself, she smiled. ‘It always does.’

‘Then that’s what you shall have.’

They switched off their lights and he snuggled down beside her, his front against her back.

‘You said a cuddle, not a grope,’ she admonished almost instantly.

He laughed in the darkness. ‘A grope’s far more interesting.’

‘No, it’s not. Now behave yourself.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes, you do.’

He pretended to groan. ‘Spoilsport.’

She didn’t reply to that, but merely smiled. Closing her eyes, she prayed that the nightmare wouldn’t recur. Thankfully, it didn’t.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’

Young Ian, washed and scrubbed and staring dully at his breakfast, shook his head.

Georgie sighed, knowing full well what the trouble was. ‘Is it the thought of school?’

He nodded.

‘There’s nothing to be scared of, you know. Why, I enjoyed myself there. Honestly I did.’

He glanced up at her in disbelief. He’d heard stories from other boys – stories he hadn’t liked one little bit. The strap, for example. If you were naughty, you were sent to the headmaster and told to hold your hands out in front of you while he gave you ‘six of the best’ on alternate palms.

‘Well, you’ll have to eat something,’ Georgie went on. ‘You can’t start your first day without anything in your stomach. So get on with it.’

Reluctantly, Ian spooned some of the boiled egg in front of him into his mouth. The egg was supposed to be a special treat to mark the occasion. Normally they only ever had eggs at the weekends, and then only sometimes.

Georgie glanced at the clock. Almost time to go. God, she was hating this, despite the brave face she was trying to put on. Her wee son starting school! It didn’t bear thinking about. She was going to miss him dreadfully during the day.

‘Right,’ she declared some minutes later. ‘Put your coat on.’

Ian felt sick inside as he dragged himself away from his chair. It seemed to his overactive imagination that he was going to his execution. The world as he knew it was about to change for ever. And not for the better, either.

‘Mum?’

‘What?’

He opened his mouth to plead to be allowed to stay at home, then shut it again, knowing she’d never agree. Not in a trillion zillion years would she do that.

Outside, Georgie took his hand as they walked along the grey but friendly Glasgow streets to the local school, where Ian’s fate awaited him.

Ian turned a strained, anxious face up to his mum. The dreaded moment had finally arrived. They were in the playground together and the bell to call him inside had just been rung.

Georgie took a deep breath. ‘I’ll have to leave you now, son, as there’s the janny about to lock the gates. Now, don’t worry. You’ll be fine. I promise. And I’ll be waiting for you at dinnertime.

Ian’s narrow chest began to heave. All he wanted was to stay with his mum, be with her as he always had except when out playing in the street.

‘Your pals will be here, so you’ll have friends about you,’ Georgie declared, attempting a cheerful tone which didn’t quite come off. She was as upset as he was. ‘Off you go, then.’

Turning, she strode purposefully towards the gate where the janny, the same Mr Green who’d been janitor when she’d been a pupil here, was patiently waiting. They exchanged a friendly word, and then she was outside the gates. She mustn’t look back, she told herself. That would only make matters worse. But despite herself, she did.

Ian stood rooted where she’d left him, his gaze fastened on hers. Suddenly he was running towards the fence that surrounded the school until he came up against it, his face awash with tears.

‘Mummy, please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me,’ he screamed hysterically, one arm extended beseechingly through the bars.

‘Oh, Christ,’ Georgie muttered. This was turning out even worse than she’d expected. She remained where she was. ‘Go inside now, Ian,’ she said sternly, feeling anything but stern.

‘Mummy, please, please!’

There was nothing else for it. Turning away from him, she went on her way with his hysterical screams ringing in her ears.

Ashen-faced, Georgie sank gratefully into a chair, her hands still shaking from the ordeal she’d been through.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ her mother Chrissie announced.

‘He screamed and screamed, Ma. Even halfway back down the road I could still hear him.’

Chrissie clucked her sympathy. ‘Aye, that sort of thing was never easy. Your sister Lena was the worst I had to deal with. Though I have to admit, she wasn’t as bad as that.’

Georgie pulled out her cigarettes and lit up. ‘Poor wee soul. It was heart-wrenching, Ma.’

Chrissie, who’d been filling the kettle at the sink, now put it on the stove and lit the gas. ‘Children can put you through it, right enough. And I should know, having had five.’ She paused for a moment, thinking of the boy who’d died directly after birth. That had been a bitter blow, one it had taken her quite a time to recover from. If, indeed, she ever had. Kenneth, they’d called him, though there hadn’t been enough time to have him christened. Even now she occasionally went to visit his grave.

Georgie glanced out of the window. ‘Looks like it’s going to rain.’

Chrissie followed her gaze. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. At least it isn’t wash day. That’s something.’

Georgie nodded her agreement.

‘That’s the trouble when you only have the one,’ Chrissie went on. ‘They’re never as tough, to begin with anyway, until others come along.’ She regarded Georgie hopefully. ‘Any news in that department?’

Georgie shook her head.

Chrissie frowned. ‘Five years is a long time. You should have been expecting again by now.’

‘Well, it’s certainly not for the lack of trying, Ma, before you ask. I can guarantee that.’

Chrissie grunted her approval. ‘I wish I could give you a biscuit, but I’ve none in, I’m afraid.’ She patted her ample stomach. ‘It won’t harm me to do without, and that’s a fact.’ After five children her figure was not what it had been, although once she’d been as slim as Georgie. Still, her husband, Big Tam, always protested he preferred her with a bit of meat on her bones. A lie, of course, or so she believed, but kind of him. That was the sort of man he was.

Georgie watched Chrissie clatter out some cups and saucers. ‘I had a horrible nightmare last night,’ she said quietly. ‘Woke up screaming, according to John.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘Fair put the wind up me. Worst nightmare I’ve ever had.’

Chrissie paused to stare at her daughter. ‘Ian screaming, you screaming? Dearie me. What was the nightmare about?’

Georgie told her.

‘Sounds terrible, right enough. No wonder it gave you the willies.’

Georgie shook her head at the memory. ‘The most frightening thing was that I felt I was actually there. It was ever so real.’

‘It would have scared me half to …’ Chrissie hesitated, then went on, ‘I was about to say to death. But that’s hardly an appropriate way of putting it.’

Georgie had to smile at that, for it was true enough. ‘The one good thing, according to John, is that dreams never come true. Have you heard that?’

‘Oh aye.’ Chrissie nodded. ‘That’s what they say. Thank God.’

Something about the way Chrissie said it prompted Georgie to ask, ‘Why thank God?’

Chrissie looked embarrassed. ‘I was thinking of a dream I had myself some while back. I suppose you could’ve called that a nightmare too.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Och no. I’m sorry I mentioned it now.’

Georgie was intrigued. ‘Come on, Ma. Spill the beans.’

‘You’ll laugh.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Oh yes you will. I guarantee it. So I’m not telling.’

Georgie took a deep draw on her cigarette, even more intrigued. ‘Suit yourself,’ she declared in an off-hand manner, as if it was of no further interest to her. ‘Though it’s hardly fair.’

‘What isn’t fair?’

‘I told you my nightmare, so it seems only fair you tell me yours. But no matter.’

Chrissie busied herself with the teapot while Georgie, pretending she’d taken the huff, remained silent. Knowing Chrissie as she did, she was sure her mother would eventually crack.

‘Aye, all right then,’ Chrissie said at last. ‘But you must promise me not to laugh.’

Georgie kept a straight face. ‘I promise.’

‘Mind you keep it then.’

Georgie waited expectantly while Chrissie took a deep breath. ‘Daft, really,’ she declared. ‘But in my dream I was standing stark naked in the middle of Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday afternoon, when the place was teeming.’

Georgie stared at her mother in amazement. ‘Stark naked?’ she repeated incredulously.

‘Not a stitch on and everyone gaping and pointing at me.’

It was one of the funniest things Georgie had ever heard. Her mother naked in Sauchiehall Street, one of Glasgow’s main thoroughfares. Now what on earth had made Chrissie dream that?

Despite her promise, Georgie threw back her head and roared with laughter at the very thought of it.

Chrissie scowled. ‘See, I said you’d laugh. But just remember, that didn’t come true either.’

Georgie couldn’t reply. She was completely convulsed.

*  *  *

‘You’re home then,’ Georgie said when John appeared in the kitchen that evening.

He went to her and kissed her on the cheek. ‘What’s for tea? I’m starved.’

‘Toad in the hole.’

‘Fair enough. That’ll do.’

‘How was work?’ she enquired, as she did every time he got back.

‘All right. Nothing untoward happened. Ardrossan and return. Slick as you like.’

John was a fireman with the recently formed London, Midland and Scottish Railway. His job was to stoke the engine boiler: back-breaking graft but a job he enjoyed none the less. It was his great ambition to be a driver one day.

‘Good.’ Georgie nodded, aware that some shifts could be worse than others, especially if they had trouble with the engine, or, as could happen, it broke down altogether. Fortunately, such occurrences were rare.

From his seat at the table, Ian watched his father cross to the sink and give himself a quick wash.

‘So, how was school then?’ John asked with a smile when he had finished.

Ian glanced at his mother, who was sworn not to tell his father about the scene in the playground that morning. He muttered something unintelligible.

John raised an eyebrow. ‘That good, eh?’ he said ironically.

‘He met up with a few pals, which made things easier,’ Georgie chipped in.

John came and sat at the table facing Ian. ‘What’s your teacher called?’

‘Miss Hamilton.’

‘Is she nice?’

‘I suppose so.’ Reluctantly.

‘Just suppose so? Don’t you know?’

Ian shrugged.

‘I see. Is she young or old?’

‘It’s hard to say.’

‘And why’s that?’

Another shrug.

‘What did you do at playtime?’

‘Someone had a ball and we had a game of footie. I enjoyed that.’

John smiled. ‘So school wasn’t too awful then?’

‘I got a sore bum sitting at my desk. Wood isn’t very comfortable.’

‘I remember.’ John nodded. ‘My bum used to get sore as well.’

Ian blushed to hear John use that word. It just didn’t seem right coming from his father.

‘And who are these pals you’ve met up with?’ John went on.

‘Just other boys.’

John sighed. He wasn’t getting very far here. ‘From the street?’

‘And round about.’

‘Good pals?’

Yet another shrug.

‘Was it their first day too?’

‘For one of them. The others are already there.’

‘They’ll be able to show you the ropes, then.’

Ian frowned. ‘I don’t understand that.’

‘Where to go and what to do,’ John explained.

‘Oh aye.’

‘That’ll make it easier for you.’

Ian took a deep breath. ‘School’s useless anyway.’

John glanced at Georgie, then back again at his son. ‘Why useless?’

‘I spent the whole day there and at the end of it I picked up a book and still couldn’t read.’

‘You still …’

‘Useless,’ Ian repeated doggedly.

For the second time that day Georgie burst out laughing. So did John. What a thing to come out with! Absolutely priceless. It had the pair of them in stitches.

‘I see you’ve started on the whisky already.’

Big Tam McKeand glanced over at his wife from where he was sitting beside the fire. ‘Are you complaining, woman?’

‘No,’ she replied drily. ‘Just commenting.’

It was early Saturday evening and, as always on a Saturday after his one o’clock finish at McNair’s, where he was a foreman moulder in the manufacture of marine pumps, Tam had returned home with a bottle of whisky and eighty cigarettes to last him through the weekend.

‘That’s all right then,’ Tam muttered, and busied himself again with his newspaper.

‘Where are you off to tonight, Lena?’ Chrissie asked her second oldest, who was applying make-up in front of the mirror that hung above the mantelpiece.

‘Don’t know, Mum. I’m meeting up with Pet and we’ll take it from there.’ Pet McQueen was Lena’s best friend.

No one in the family ever mentioned the fact, but Lena was as ugly as sin. Not just plain, but downright ugly. She had the sort of face that would have made a good model for a gargoyle. On top of that she had a thin, bony figure with hardly any bust to speak of. It was not surprising, Chrissie thought regretfully, that she had never been very successful with men.

‘Probably the pictures,’ Lena added as an afterthought.

‘What’s on?’ Chrissie asked.

‘No idea. Pet will probably know.’

‘Where are you meeting her?’

Lena mentioned a local spot.

‘So you’re not going into town, then?’

‘We haven’t planned to.’

Tam swallowed a mouthful of whisky, then placed his glass back on the floor, just as his son Tom came into the room. At eighteen, Tom was still serving his apprenticeship at McNair’s, where he worked under his father, and, with his greased-back hair and slightly olive complexion, was the apple of his mother’s eye. None of them knew where the olive skin came from, but it certainly didn’t run in the family. Not that there was any question of his paternity: the similarity in looks between him and Tam was striking. He had been christened Thomas after his father, but Tam preferred the Scottish version.

‘As you’re wearing a collar and tie I suppose it’s the jigging for you the night.’ Chrissie smiled. Tom was dancing mad.

‘That’s right, Mum. I met a wee lassie last week and am kind of hoping she’ll turn up again. She was a smashing dancer. A real twinkletoes.’

‘Twinkletoes!’ Tam snorted, lighting a cigarette. ‘Whoever heard the like?’

Tom smiled, well used to his father’s disparaging remarks, and knowing there was no malice in them. It was simply Tam’s way. ‘Twinkle twinkle,’ he said teasingly, doing a fancy shuffle with his feet.

‘The lad’s an idiot,’ Tam muttered.

‘He’s nothing of the sort,’ Chrissie rebuked her husband. ‘And you shouldn’t say such things. You’ll dent his confidence.’

‘It’ll take a lot more than me to do that,’ Tam declared. ‘He’s got so much bloody confidence the stuff almost oozes out of him. Far too much of it in my opinion.’

‘You do talk rot at times, Tam McKeand,’ Chrissie admonished him. ‘For an intelligent man, that is.’

That pleased Tam. He liked the idea of being thought of as intelligent, having left school at the age of nine. He’d gone to the Ragged School, he always said. No shoes, and your bare arse hanging out of your pants. He’d been brought up in hard times when a boy went to work at the first opportunity to help bring money into the house. A proper education for their sons was something the likes of his parents hadn’t been able to afford.

With a most unladylike grunt Lena finished her makeup and returned her bits and pieces to the small bag she kept for that purpose. ‘I’ll be off then,’ she announced.

‘Mind how you go,’ Chrissie said.

‘I always do, Mum. Ta-ra then!’ And with that she swept from the kitchen.

Tam stared after his daughter, wondering if she’d ever find a man. He doubted it. Which probably meant she’d never move out and would be with them for the rest of their days: a prospect he wasn’t entirely sure he relished.

Tom also left the room to come back a few minutes later wearing his overcoat. ‘Don’t wait up for me,’ he said with a smile. ‘I might be late.’

‘Don’t worry, we won’t,’ Tam growled, and drank more whisky, enjoying the warmth and bite of it coursing down his throat.

‘Are you thinking you might be lumbering this wee lassie you mentioned?’ Chrissie enquired, wanting to know whether Tom intended to take the girl home with the possibility of arranging a further meeting.

‘Possibly,’ Tom reluctantly admitted. ‘I’ve no idea where she lives. There’s no point if it’s too far away. I don’t mind a walk but I’ve no intention of hiking miles and miles.’

Chrissie could see the sense in that. ‘Well, enjoy yourself anyway. See you in the morning.’

‘Night, Papa.’

Tam glanced up from his paper. ‘Night, son. And good luck.’

‘Thanks, Papa.’

‘Twinkletoes,’ Tam muttered to himself when Tom had gone, and chuckled.

Chrissie waited till Tam had had a few whiskies and was in a mellow mood before coming over to sit facing him.

‘There’s something I want to talk to you about,’ she declared. ‘And now’s a good time as we’re on our own.’

‘What’s that about then?’

‘Mary.’

Tam’s face clouded over with displeasure at the mention of their oldest child. ‘I’m not in the mood to discuss her and her nonsense,’ he growled.

‘Things can’t go on as they are,’ Chrissie persisted. ‘We haven’t seen her in over a year now. Eighteen months, more like.’

‘That’s not my fault.’

‘It was you started the barney the pair of you had last time she was here.’

‘I did nothing of the sort!’ he protested.

‘Yes, you did. And you know it.’

Tam sat further up in his chair, drained his glass and poured himself another. ‘She began spouting religion to me yet again, and I wasn’t having it. She’s become a complete nutter on the subject.’

‘She’s still our daughter.’

‘Look, woman, she’s welcome here whenever she likes, but when she comes in this house I insist she leaves all her preaching and holier-than-thou business at the door. I don’t want to hear any of that guff.’ He shook his head. ‘Always going on about this sect she’s joined, and their meetings she’s forever going to. Christ, she’s done so much praying I’m amazed her bloody knees haven’t worn out.’

Chrissie couldn’t help but smile. It was true enough. Mary was always mentioning this meeting she’d attended, or that one, or another. She’d become something of a one-woman crusade, though not for the Church of Scotland, to which the rest of the family belonged.

‘I don’t know how James puts up with it,’ Tam went on. James was Mary’s husband, and father of her two children. ‘I’d have given her a good skite long before now.’

‘That’s because he’s weak and lets Mary walk all over him.’

Tam nodded his agreement. ‘Nice enough chap. But, as you say, weak as sugarallywater.’

‘But brave. You can’t deny that, now.’

There had been a bad fire some years previously at the tannery where James worked. When he was told that his brother was trapped in the burning building he had wrestled clear of those who were trying to stop him and dashed back inside to rescue him. James had received a special citation for bravery.

‘No, I can’t,’ Tam admitted. ‘He was a hero when it counted and no one can ever take that away from him.’

Tam drank more whisky and then lit another cigarette. He’d aye liked James Davidson but despised the way he kowtowed to his wife. It upset Tam that he was estranged from Mary whom he’d doted on as a child, she being their firstborn. He wished things could go back to how they’d been before she’d fallen in with those holy rollers and absorbed their weird notions. According to them the world was going to end in twenty-something years’ time, and everyone would go to hell who didn’t hold to their beliefs and practices. Hence Mary’s anxiety to get the rest of the family to join, and therefore be ‘saved’. As he’d pointed out to her, it didn’t seem very likely that God would destroy the vast majority of mankind and save only those souls who believed the teachings – rantings, more like – of the sect. That wasn’t very logical to his way of thinking. Or, or as he’d once put it more succintly, in his opinion the whole thing was nothing more than a load of old shite.

Chrissie sighed, deciding to drop the subject. For now, anyway. But just for now.

Miss Hamilton stopped to peer over Ian’s shoulder. Suddenly acutely aware of her presence, he blushed bright red.

‘What a lovely house you’ve painted, Ian,’ she said. ‘I’m impressed.’

He thought Miss Hamilton was smashing, and she always smelt wonderful. ‘Thank you, miss,’ he managed to croak.

She pointed a finger. ‘And this little chap here. Is that you?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And the lady?’

‘My mum.’

‘I see. And. . .