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than a pittance, but now he had all the cash he needed.
    He rushed through the dining room, totally ignoring Nora as she vigorously swept the floor. In the yard he hopped on his scooter and in no time he was at Larry Mason’s house, relieved to see the Vauxhall parked outside.
    ‘Is the car still for sale?’ he asked, hiding his anxiety when the man came to the door.
    ‘Yeah, do you want to have another look at it?’
    ‘I’ve just been to see a Morris, but I can’t make up my mind between the two. Mind you, the Morris is cheaper.’
    ‘Huh, you can’t compare a Morris to a Vauxhall Wyvern.’
    ‘Maybe not, but I ain’t made of money.’
    ‘Come on, I’ll take you for a spin. It might help you to make up your mind.’
    Kevin hid a smile. He knew he was going to buy the Wyvern, but there was no need to let Larry know that. He wasn’t ready to part with two hundred quid and intended to haggle.
    ‘It runs like a dream,’ the man said as they drove along Falcon Road.
    ‘The engine sounds all right, but I think I’ll go for the Morris. It’s fifty quid cheaper and I ain’t got money to burn.’
    ‘How about I knock off twenty-five quid? It’s still a better car, and I can’t go any lower.’
    Kevin pursed his lips, pretending to consider the offer, and then said, ‘All right, Larry. I’ll take it off your hands.’
    In another hour Kevin was on his way to see some important contacts, his heart thumping. They’d have to take him seriously now. They needed a car, and he had one. And without it, the job would be impossible.

 
    5

    On Saturday, Pearl took her first week’s wages, pleased to find an extra ten shillings. With tips she had made two pounds, thirteen and sixpence. A guinea would have to go to her landlord, but now that she didn’t have to buy much food, art classes were definitely on.
    She hugged herself with excitement. Art classes! She could actually go to art classes! Her mind slid back to the orphanage and the one teacher she had liked. Miss Rosen had come to the orphanage during Pearl’s final year, and she’d been inspirational, encouraging her to look at objects in a new way.
    ‘See the texture of the bricks,’ she would say, ‘feel them, and there’s the sky, Pearl. It isn’t just one shade of blue with clouds like puffs of cotton wool. Look closely – there are far more colours.’
    And she had looked, and she had learned, but not enough, not nearly enough. Only three months after Miss Rosen arrived came Pearl’s release, and she was one of the first to leave that year. And that’s how she saw it: release – as though she had spent her whole life up to that moment in prison. Miss Rosen was the only teacher she missed, but she would never forget her art lessons.
    Before leaving she’d been told they had found her a job in a laundry, and a place in a hostel, both of which she hated from the first day. The work in the laundry sickened her, making her stomach turn. Her job was to sort out linen from great bags, and check that the laundry mark was in place before sending it on to the washroom. The sheets, from a local psychiatric hospital and an old folk’s home, were often covered in blood, vomit or excrement. She had tried to distance her mind, but it was impossible, and then, after months and months, there came the final straw. A sheet she pulled out was so covered in filth that she had bent double, vomiting on the cold stone floor.
    With little money saved, she had left both the job and the hostel. She moved to an area a long way from the orphanage, alighting from the train at Clapham Junction station. Maybe it was luck, maybe she had a guardian angel, but almost immediately she’d seen a card in a newsagent’s window offering a cheap room to let. After asking directions she had made her way to Battersea High Street, enthralled by the busy, bustling market. She had taken the room, and then when almost down to her last penny, providence stepped in again when she found the