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her head-cloth was so old and threadbare that he could see her white hair through it. He thought she must be at least ninety. As she hunted, she mumbled something to herself.
    ‘Can I help, old Mama?’ Joshua asked.
    She examined him through screwed up eyes. ‘Anna’s little boy,’ she said. ‘Yes, you’ve got her mouth. Pretty mouth. But your hair isn’t hers. Or your eyes.’
    Joshua glanced at his father for reassurance. People didn’t often mention his mother to him.
    ‘She was a good girl,’ Mama Siska went on. ‘A good girl. Now, what was it I wanted?’
    Joshua felt a nervous giggle coming on, but a frown from his father stopped it just in time. ‘You were looking for something,’ he prompted.
    ‘Ah, yes. ‘Here …’ She lifted a fold of her skirt towards Joshua. ‘You look for my pocket. Tell me when you find it.’
    Joshua went round her slowly, holding her long skirtout a little at a time, searching for a thickening in the seam that would indicate a pocket. On the third fold he found it.
    ‘Here, old Mama,’ he said, putting it in her hands.
    ‘Thank you, my darling,’ she said.
    His job done, Joshua stepped back. He didn’t feel quite sure of himself with Mama Siska, never had.
    With a flourish, her hands pulled something from her pocket and pushed it on to the counter. There was a rattle of glass. Joshua’s father picked up the offering. A round, lacy cover, with coloured glass beads hanging from the edges, dangled from his fingers.
    ‘I taught your Anna to crochet when she was a girl. About your Joshua’s age,’ she added, almost smiling at Joshua. ‘You have it now. It will be useful for the flies.’
    Joshua’s father reached under the counter, moved aside a corner of the net sheeting and put the pretty cover over a container of fat.
    ‘Thank you, old Mama,’ he said, coming over and giving her his hand as she turned to go. ‘That is very kind of you.’
    ‘It’s for luck,’ she wheezed, looking up at him. ‘For her sake, mind. You’ll need it, meatseller.’
    Joshua saw a shadow cross his father’s face. To the villagers, ‘meatseller’ was a bad word; if they used it at all it was as a curse. But Mama Siska had said it so gently that it had sounded more like a warning.
    She turned and looked at Joshua. ‘Son of meatseller,’ she whispered. She crossed herself again, and went out.
    He shivered and joined his father behind the counter once more. He opened his mouth to speak, but his father semed so far away that he decided not to and closed it again without saying a word.
    A fly landed on the counter. And another. His father handed him the new fly swat. ‘They must have come in with her,’ he said. ‘Kill them.’
    By the end of the morning there were lots more flies to contend with; they sneaked in every time the curtain was pulled aside. But there were still far fewer than there would have been outside at the table. Joshua was kept busy swatting them and flicking them on to the floor, in between wrapping up pieces of meat – a bit of liver here, a chop there, a large lump of stewing meat.
    Business had never been so brisk. Some people had come to buy, others just wanted to see and admire the new shop. And once they were there they stayed to gossip, enjoying the novelty. It got so full that Joshua was almost suffocated in the press of people.
    Someone brought a jar of toddy. Someone else produced five glasses, which were shared out among the crowd. Robert arrived with his mother.
    The party spilled out of the shop and into the clearing. A drum was produced, Leon, Robert’smother’s boyfriend, began to play a homemade fiddle. Old Mama Siska shuffled forward from the edge of the crowd and was the first to begin dancing, her wrinkles almost relaxing into a smile. The threadbare ruffles at the bottom of her skirt flounced to the swaying of her scrawny hips. More toddy appeared and was passed around.
    Children came running into the clearing, including some of the