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they would have heard her scrambling to the side of them.
    She stood with her back pressed against a drainpipe that was blocked at the top, and the water splashed down on to her and almost blinded her, but she daren’t lift her hand up in case it attracted their attention because they were in the yard now.
    She put her head to one side away from the water spout and she could see Mr. Tollett and her mother standing in the beam of light from the doorway. Mr. Tollett had his hand on the outside door and he was saying, Tt isn’t that I’m un grateful, Alice, don’t think that, but. but it wouldn’t be right. Alec’s a good man; I’ve known him for years, he’s a good man. “
    Her mother’s voice came to her now, thin and grim, saying, “Good man!
    You don’t know. He doesn’t need me, nor me him; there’s been nothing, well, not for years. I tell you, Ben. “ There followed a silence as if somebody had put a hand across her mouth.
    Mr. Tollett was holding the back door open and she saw her mother step slowly through it and into the street. She saw Mr. Tollett thrust the bolt home, pause for a moment with his hands still on it, then turn towards the back door. She thought she heard him mutter “God Almighty!” but she couldn’t be sure.
    She remained where she was, frightened to move, until there came faintly through the wall the sound of the shop bell ringing. She let a few minutes elapse, then she groped her way to the wall door, undid the bolt and went out into the street, and strangely she wasn’t thinking about her ma and Mr. Toilet, but about her da, and she kept repeating in her mind, “Oh, Da. Da.” It wasn’t until she had almost reached the house that she thought, me ma wants to go with Mr. Tollett, she was offering herself to Mr.
    Tollett. She recalled vaguely that her ma had known Mr. Tollett about the time when she first knew her da. Then Mr. Tollett had gone away to live in the south with an aunt, and had worked in a car factory or had something to do with cars, it was all very vague but she could just remember her da talking about it with her gran da and her da saying, “He won’t take to the shop; he could never stand the shops, that’s why he went away.”
    Her da had never been happy since he had been out of work, but his unhappiness seemed to have deepened this last year, since her ma had gone to work for Mr. Tollett And this was the reason. He knew about her ma wanting Mr. Tollett.
    As her body’s reaction was to tremble at the sight of her first love, Hughie, so it now ached with physical pain that was akin to anguish when it touched on the plight of her constant love, her da. Her da must be feeling awful, awful, because he must love her ma. He must have loved her, mustn’t he, to have married her in the first place? And he must still love her because if he didn’t he wouldn’t be hurt as he was. So she reasoned.
    Oh her ma! She hated her ma. She was not sorry now that she wished at times she were dead. She would love to go in now and say, “I saw you all over Mr. Tollett. You’re nasty, that’s what you are, you’re nasty.” It would be difficult when her ma got at her not to turn on her and tell her that she knew all about her carry-on; but then she mustn’t, her da had enough to put up with.
    When she entered the house Alice started on her almost immediately.
    “Went to find me, did you? It’s a straight road from here to the shop; did you make yourself invisible, be cause I didn’t see you? “ Then she advanced towards her and cried,
    “ If you were up that alley, miss, up to any carry-on I’ll skin you. “ But she did not finish, for her daughter spat at her, “Shut up you!” They stared at each other, eyes wide, while Alee, Jimmy and Grandma McAlister stared at them and the three marvelled that Alice didn’t take her hand and knock her daughter flying. All Alice did was to take in a long deep breath and turn away and attack the iron pan on the stove, grinding