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weren’t born this age. Theese oughta know that.’
    Just like Agnes and her mother, Ellen Proctor’s eyes were amber and tilted upwards at the outer corners. It was difficult to deduce what her features had been before they became bloated with age and scarred with hard work. The hair beneath the man’s cap was thin and white. Her figure had long gone to seed and she was shorter than both her daughter and granddaughter.
    Agnes’s grandmother, who was giving herself a good scratch, her flesh wobbling beneath her faded dress and patched apron, noticed her prolonged stare.
    ‘What you looking at, girl?’
    ‘You don’t wear stays do you, Gran?’ Agnes asked.
    Her grandmother threw back her head and belted out a hearty laugh.
    ‘Agnes!’ exclaimed her mother, who had just put the kettle on to the hob. ‘That is rude. This is your grandmother. You should have more respect.’
    Agnes shrugged. ‘I was only asking. It doesn’t look as though Gran does wear stays, and I was wondering …’
    Ellen Proctor’s eyes twinkled as she took it all in.
    ‘Well, wonder no more. You’re getting too big for your boots, young lady.’ Her mother chided her.
    ‘Leave the girl be, Sarah. I likes to be comfortable and I don’t care who knows it. She’s curious. It don’t hurt being curious. Anyways, I don’t wear stays. They itch and I feel like a horse in harness. Why should I be constrained like a horse just ’cause I’m a woman?’
    ‘Men don’t,’ said Agnes, pleased with her grandmother’s response. ‘And I don’t want to. I mean, what’s the point?’
    ‘So, what do you like to wear?’ asked her grandmother whilst tipping the contents of her teacup into her saucer.
    ‘Trousers. And goggles. I like driving. I want to be a chauffeur when I grow up.’
    Her grandmother slurped back some tea, her eyes never leaving her granddaughter’s face. Shaking her head, she said, ‘No. That’s no good. You want somebody to drive you around, not you driving some bigwig around.’
    Sarah bristled. ‘Don’t encourage her, Mother. She’s difficult enough as it is.’
    Agnes beamed from ear to ear. ‘I’m going to learn to drive a motor car and a motor bike. Then I’m going to fly like the Wright brothers. They flew high above the ground in an aeroplane at Kittyhawk and now everyone’s doing it. Their exploit will go down in history. That’s what Sir Avis told me.’
    While her mother stood looking dismayed, her grandmother laughed even heartier than before and told her she could be whatever she wanted to be.
    ‘Please yourself,’ she said, her broad smile enabling Agnes to count every tooth in her head. ‘Please yourself, my girl! Before long, girls will be doing whatever boys are doing.’
    ‘That’s what Sir Avis says,’ Agnes proclaimed, her complexion brightened by the sparkle in her eyes, her pink lips slightly parted. ‘He said in this modern world I could be whatever I want to be. He told me to reach for the sky and I might end up sitting on the roof. And he’d help where he could.’
    ‘He would,’ said her grandmother, a knowing look passing between her and Sarah, and her daughter.
    Agnes looked at her mother who was hanging her head over her cup and saucer and sensed that her red cheeks had nothing to do with the hot tea.
    The sound of heavy footsteps came from the passageway that led to the street.
    ‘Mrs Proctor? Are you there?’
    Agnes’s grandmother put down her cup and got to her feet. ‘I’m out in the scullery,’ she shouted back.
    ‘Harry Allen come for his mother’s laundry,’ she exclaimed while wiping her hands down her apron. She winked at Agnes. ‘At least she ain’t mean with the money like Mrs Bennett.’
    Harry Allen, a young man of seventeen, with blue eyes and a shock of corn-coloured hair, breezed into the scullery. On seeing Agnes and her mother, he took off his cap.
    ‘Hello, Mrs Stacey. Hello, Agnes.’ His eyes lingered on Agnes. ‘My, but you’re growing up.