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high heels. Her mother had even let her have her hair cut at the hairdresser’s, and put it in curlers for her. But the way Vincent was looking at her made her all too aware of her breasts which had appeared out of nowhere in the past three months.
    ‘Seeing Laura is like having a glimpse of how you must have looked as a young girl,’ he said to June. ‘I’m sure she’ll grow into a beautiful woman too.’
    Her mother glowed at the compliment, but to Laura it sounded as if he was implying her daughter was an ugly duckling. It was on the tip of her tongue to make some retort about how she could copy her mother by bleaching her hair, but she bit that back because she didn’t want to spoil the day for June.
    ‘I want you all to come and live with me,’ Vincent said a little later, beaming at them all. ‘I have a very nice house in Barnes, right on the river. Meggie can go to the school there, and Ivy and Freddy will follow when they are old enough. But you, Laura, your mother and I think you should stay at your present school. It’s not that far on the tube.’
    ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ her mother interrupted, her face alight with excitement. ‘You just wait till you see it! It’s got two bathrooms, can you believe that! Ivy and Meggie will have a room together, and there’s a little one for Freddy and another one just for you, Laura. Vincent is going to get you a real desk too so you can do your homework in peace.’
    ‘What’s Dad going to say about this?’ Laura asked. Part of her was delighted that they’d be leaving Thornfield Road: the thought of a real bathroom and a room of her own was like a glimpse of heaven. If her mother had just talked about this to her first, before today, maybe she could have been really happy about it. But as it was, Laura felt her feelings and opinions meant nothing at all.
    ‘I couldn’t care less what he says,’ her mother snapped. ‘He didn’t think of me and you kids when he went off holding up that post office. The chances were he was planning to run off from us with that box of money.’
    ‘Your mother has had a very difficult time,’ Vincent chimed in reprovingly. ‘And you are old enough to understand that, Laura.’
    Laura leapt up from her seat. ‘Understand it! I’ve supported her through it! If it wasn’t for me these three would have gone hungry and had no clothes to wear. You’ll soon find out how she is! All she cares about is her fags and getting her hair bleached. She can’t even clean up.’
    She ran out of the Corner House then, ignoring her mother calling her back, and kept on running until she came to Regent Street, where she was too out of breath to run any further.
    Leaning against a wall to catch her breath, she knew she’d said too much and that her mother was unlikely to forgive her. What’s more, she’d left her coat at the Corner House and the wind was icy. And she had no money to get on the tube, or even a key for the front door; that was in her coat pocket.
    An hour later Laura arrived home. She’d got on the tube without a ticket easily enough, but when she got off at Goldhawk Road she had to spin a yarn to the ticket collector that she’d had her coat stolen, and ask if she could bring the fare along to him the next day. He let her off, but as she walked up the road shivering in her thin dress, she was really frightened about the reception she would get at home.
    Meggie opened the front door to her. ‘Mum’s really angry with you,’ she whispered, her dark eyes wide with anxiety. ‘Uncle Vincent put us in a taxi to come home. He said you needed taking in hand.’
    Laura gave her little sister a squeeze. Meggie was a worrier; at only seven she already had frown furrows in her little brow. She and Ivy were prettier than Laura had been; their hair was dark brown and very shiny, and their eyes were bigger. But Meggie’s worrying spoiled her looks – right now she looked like a little old lady.
    ‘I don’t care if I’m