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Queenie grabbed her skirt.
    ‘Listen, it’s time you gave up these daft ideas about leaving the works. Staying in one place and having a cottage and a garden is for ordinary folks, not for the likes of us.’
    Blank-faced, wishing she had never clothed her dream in words, much less confided it to Queenie, Veryan silently screamed her denial. She would never accept that. She wasn’t us. Eyes lowered, she simply waited. Impatiently, Queenie pushed her away.
    ‘You’re some stubborn maid. No one can say I haven’t done my best. I’ve treated you like you was my own.’
    Veryan wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, and too tired for either. She was little more than a slave. Yet Queenie’s laziness had been her protection. For if Queenie had not taken her in after her mother’s death, her only means of survival at fourteen would have been living with one of the navvies.
    Ten men lived in the shanty: nine since Cider Joe had broken his leg four days ago and been carried off the works tied to a gate. Seven shillings a week bought each man three meals a day, his washing was done, and he had sole occupancy of one of the bunks which filled the far end of the shanty from floor to roof.
    But while Queenie took the money and ruled from her armchair, it was she, not Queenie, who hauled water from the stream to fill the two coppers, one in the wash-house, the other in here next to the hearth. It was her hands, not Queenie’s, that were constantly cracked and sore from scrubbing sweat-stained shirts and mud-caked breeches. It was she who cooked the often fly-blown meat and shrivelled vegetables Pascoe sold in his tally shop, the men’s only source of food unless they could catch a rabbit or poach game from a nearby estate.
    She walked to the works each day with bread, cheese and beer for their dinner. She carried coal from the tip, chopped wood for the fires, and tipped the ashes down the privy to deaden the stench. And over the last four years she had learned to be ever more wary of pay-days.
    Once they had paid Queenie – who always insisted on money in advance – the men invariably made for the nearest town. On this line it was Penryn. There they stayed, drinking, gambling and whoring until they ran out of money, or were released from jail.
    On other occasions when the engine had been late, or had broken down, they had walked. But this time the rain was too heavy. They would be soaked to the skin before they even reached the road.
    For Pascoe, as for Queenie, the men’s confinement was a blessing. Bringing whisky onto the works guaranteed he would recoup the money he had just paid them in wages. Drying the last of the plates and bowls, Veryan stacked them on the rickety dresser. Her bruised shoulder was stiff and aching. As the men bawled at one another – laughter punctuated by curses, shoving and scuffles more frequent – every instinct urged her to leave. Trouble was imminent and she wanted to get away before it erupted.
    Drying the crude cutlery she put in the drawer. All except her special knife, the one she used for cooking. Worn away to a thin curve half its original width, its short blade was razor sharp. She had seen both Paddy and Nipper eyeing it. If she left it in the drawer it would have gone by morning. Slipping it into her skirt pocket she hung the cloth over a line at one side of the fire. Then, trying to be inconspicuous, she edged between Queenie and the broad backs of the men at the table towards the door.
    ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Queenie demanded.
    ‘It’s all done. I haven’t left anything.’
    ‘I never said you did. I asked where you was going,’ Queenie’s voice was slurred, her tone belligerent.
    Veryan’s wary sidelong glance towards the men caught a blood-shot stare in which curiosity was stirring. She looked swiftly away. ‘To my hut.’
    ‘How am I supposed to deal with this lot on my own?’ Queenie whined. ‘I only got one pair of hands. No, you stay here. You