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albeit it was anyone’s guess when that would be as the present sixty-one-year-old incumbent had held the post for twenty years and didn’t look like relinquishing it until forced to retire. But the eventual increase in wages would enable Arch to support his family in a lifestyle far better than the hand-to-mouth one he’d had himself as a child, and without their having toscrimp and scrape any longer. To ensure he got his way, Arch insisted they took precautions whenever they made love, which in their case was frequently.
    Pushing the door shut behind him, he snapped at his wife, ‘Aidy, do you know what time it is? Why are you still here and not at home, getting my dinner?’
    Her face cast into shadow by the light of the flickering gas mantle, she was sitting at the rickety kitchen table, cradling her eight-year-old sister Marion on her knee.
    She was so lost in her own thoughts, the unexpected sound of Arch’s voice made her jump. She turned to look at him and whispered, ‘Keep your voice down, Arch, I’ve only just got our Marion off. Could you put her to bed for me while I mash Gran a cuppa?’
    He looked questioningly at her. ‘But what about my dinner? I’m famished. Can’t yer mam see to Marion and mashing yer gran a cuppa?’
    Stroking her hand tenderly over the top of her sister’s head, in a choked voice Aidy uttered, ‘No, Mam can’t, Arch.’
    As he advanced towards her, he was disturbed to see that her face was swollen, red and blotchy. She’d been crying. Wondering what could have caused her to be so upset, he demanded, ‘What’s happened, love?’ Automatically, because of her age, he assumed, ‘Is it your gran? Has she been took sick?’ He put his handon Aidy’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘She’ll rally round, love. Tough as old boots is your gran.’
    ‘It’s not Gran, Arch, it’s me mam.’ Her bottom lip trembling, Aidy told him, ‘She’s dead.’
    He was visibly shaken by this unexpected news. He had got on well with his mother-in-law, felt a deep respect for her, had secretly wished he’d her sort as his own mother and not the type he did have. ‘Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry, Aidy,’ he said in all sincerity. ‘Accident at one of her jobs, was it?’
    She shook her head. ‘It happened here in the kitchen, this evening, just before I got here. Doc said her heart just stopped. He couldn’t do anything for her. She died just like that,’ she said, clicking two fingers. Her face puckered then, a fresh flow of tears rolling down her cheeks, and she miserably sobbed, ‘Oh, Arch, I can’t bear it! She wasn’t just my mother, she was my friend.’
    He desperately wanted to take her in his arms and offer her what comfort he could, but the child in her arms was preventing him. Easing Marion out of her em brace as gently as he could so as not to wake her, he said, ‘I won’t be a minute.’
    He found Aidy where he’d left her when he came back down several moments later. ‘Marion never stirred,’ he informed her. ‘Betty is spark out too, and I poked my head around George’s door and so is he.’
    How Aidy wished she herself could escape into the oblivion of sleep, but that was out of the question for a while yet. Her younger siblings were not in need of her now but her grandmother would be. And, besides, first you had to fall asleep, and how did you do that when every fibre of your being was consumed by an emotional pain so strong it felt as if your heart had been ripped out?
    Arch was continuing, ‘I put my ear to your gran’s door and couldn’t hear anything, so I gather she’s asleep too.’
    ‘Gran’s not in bed, Arch. She’s in the parlour, laying out Mam.’
    He looked astounded. ‘Your gran’s doing that herself!’
    ‘She insisted. I offered to go and fetch Mrs Doubleday who sees to all that sort of thing around here, but she said no stranger was messing with her daughter. Was adamant, in fact. She shocked me, Arch. When me granddad died she