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eat. Something like Con’s unwanted sandwiches, for instance.
    Emily could see a small shadow lurking by the bins. A small shadow? She frowned. Ah, yes, she could see him now, a dirty, poor-looking boy, his bare legs blue with cold, and his face pinched. He had seen her too. He looked terrified, so he wasn’t some young thief, then, hoping to grab her handbag. He was turning away from her. He looked hunted, desperate, and as thin as a stick. Emily’s heart melted.
    ‘Here, boy, you look hungry. You can have these,’ she told him, holding out Con’s greaseproof-paper-wrapped sandwiches to him.
    He licked his lips, darting nervous looks towards her, and then down the alleyway, stretching out his hand and then withdrawing it, the look in his eyes one of mingled hunger and fear. Emily sensed that if she moved any closer to him he would turn and run.
    ‘Look, I’m going to put the sandwiches down here. Tinned salmon, they are, and best quality too,’ she told him inconsequently. ‘Brought them for my husband, I did, but he’s gone out. I’m going to put them down here and then I’m going to walkaway. If you’ve any sense, you won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’
    She put the sandwiches down and started to move away but then something stopped her and she turned back to him.
    ‘There’ll be some more this time tomorrow and some hot soup, if you want it, but don’t you go telling anyone else because I’m not feeding every young beggar in Liverpool, that I’m not.’
    As she walked away from him Emily was dying to turn round but she made herself wait until she had reached the end of the alleyway. When she did turn, she wasn’t surprised to see that both the boy and the sandwiches had gone.
    Poor little kid. More than half starved, he’d looked. Probably lost his home and p’haps his family as well – there’d been plenty of folk who had, thanks to Hitler’s bombs, according to the papers.
    She made her way home – no point in bothering looking round the shops, seeing as they had nothing much to sell, thanks to the war. Not that she’d got anyone to go buying Christmas presents for, except her ungrateful and unfaithful husband. Spoiled him rotten, she had in those early years, and nothing but the best either – hand-made suits, a lovely camel coat with a smart fur collar, just like the big theatre owners on Broadway wore. She’d seen photographs. All Con had ever given her had been boxes of chocolates, and not fancy ones either. That poor little kid hadn’t even had a decent jacket to keep himself warm, never mind a coat with a real fur collar. She could easily buyhim a pair of gloves and a scarf from that Iris Napier, her neighbour who was always going on at her to join her knitting circle. She might as well go home via St John’s Market, which was behind the theatre and off Charlotte Street, and order a turkey after all. She hadn’t been going to bother, seeing as Con would be down here at the theatre, Christmas Day or no Christmas Day, but she could invite Iris Napier in and if there was any turkey left, well, then she could make up some nice thick sandwiches for the boy, that was, of course, if he should come back, which he probably wouldn’t. But if he did, well, then she’d have a bit of something for him.
       
    ‘It was bad enough trying to shop for Christmas last year, but goodness knows how the Government expects us to manage this year, what with rationing coming in. Your father’s had something to say about the cost of a bottle of gin, I can tell you,’ Vi told Bella as they walked down Bold Street, Liverpool’s most exclusive shopping street.
    Bella was barely listening to her mother’s monologue; instead she was watching the young woman – the young mother – on the other side of the road. Her coat was shabby, like the pram she was pushing. She looked tired and poor, no engagement ring shining about her thin gold wedding band. Bella looked down at her own hand; her wedding