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more to say. ‘I know why Da did it and if he can change the way management behave that’s great, but I can’t see it. What’s more, he’s putting himself in danger. He’ll have to knock those damned props out of worked-out seams to be reused and as much as he tests the roof, it can come down. You know that. I know that. I don’t want him hurt. Christ, his chest’s bad enough without that worry.’
    She said, ‘He knows that too so he’ll be careful or he’ll have Mam to deal with, and you know which he’d rather face.’ They were laughing, but not inside. This was all too serious, and this was also their goodbye. This was the talk they would not have again because it was a parting of the ways. She was no longer a child and their lives would be lived separately. She said just once more, ‘I want you out of the pit.’
    He shook his head. ‘One day maybe but it’s funny really, we’re both in the lion’s den, now, pet. You as well as me.’
    She stared at him. Yes, she was, and another idea came to her. She gripped his arm. ‘Listen Jack, I can pick up any gossip to do with the pit. I can use them in that way too.’
    Jack turned from the beck and looked down at her, then nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aye, there’s that. But you just remember to be careful, bonny lass. I want nothing and no one to take your dream from you.’
    They watched a kingfisher swoop down and tear along the beck towards the source. She had swum in it more times than she could count, with Jack, with Simon and with Timmie. Well, life could take away a dream, but not the past, and she started to cry and so did Jack. Against his shoulder she murmured her plans. ‘In five years I want to be in the Vermont in Newcastle, learning that side of it so I get it right for ours.’
    She looked about for the kingfisher while he told her that Ireland was preparing battle lines between Protestants and Catholics, that Germany was building battleships to challenge the British world domination, and that was not all: the British workers were realising they had power, ‘By, we’ve a political party now. Can you believe it, the Independent Labour Party, and one day soon there’s going to be trouble. Hell, there could even be revolution. You must enjoy every day for itself, Evie, for who can tell what’s going to happen in the future.’
    She read the papers too but wouldn’t believe the rhetoric. ‘War can’t happen, we wouldn’t be that daft, and anyway, if it does it will be between the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, or if Germany quarrels with us it will be a fight between armies, not people. There won’t be a revolution. I don’t think enough workers are angry. My concern is that you, Da and Timmie stay safe at Auld Maud.’ She gripped his arm. ‘You continue your union work, but more importantly you must stay safe.’
    Jack shrugged. ‘That’s down to luck.’
    She gave up on the kingfisher and instead stared into the beck, hearing the water gurgling through the dam boulders, and murmured, ‘It’s down to listening to the roof and getting out before it falls, it’s about taking no risks. And yes, it’s about luck. So stay lucky.’ They ate everything in the bait tins.
    They arrived at Easterleigh Hall in good time. The Hall had been built in the era of George III, a monarch much maligned according to Miss Manton, who said he had not really been potty but had some sort of a condition. Easterleigh Hall had been designed by a young Italian architect who ran away to Florence with the lady of the manor, which had led to the lord selling it to his cousin and upping sticks to London. That line had died out, and the Bramptons had bought it five years ago.
    Whatever the young architect’s naughtiness, his sense of style was perfect, Evie had thought on the day of her interview, and