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to.’
     
    ‘Da.’
     
    It was a soft whimper, and immediately the small stocky figure was at her side. ‘What is it, lass? What’s wrong?’
     
    For a quivering moment she almost blurted out the truth but something outside herself, born of humiliation and shame and guilt, warned, don’t say a word, not a word about Alec. Blame it on the drink. Just the drink .
     
    ‘I . . . I feel bad.’
     
    ‘Bad?’
     
    She reached out to him, clinging like a child to the one man she could trust. ‘We . . . it was Granny Sutton’s sloe gin. I’ve been sick.’
     
    She was still trembling violently in spite of David’s jacket and she felt her father stiffen, but his voice was matter-of-fact when he said, ‘You go in an’ lie down, lass, get yerself to bed, eh? That lot in there are makin’ moves to go so it won’t be long afore it’s quiet, an’ you’ll feel a mite better in the mornin’.’
     
    ‘Da--’
     
    ‘Go on, lass, go on.’ When she would have said more, Sandy put her gently from him, pushing her towards the back door. ‘I’ll be in in a minute an’ you’ll be better in the warm.’ He took the jacket off her shoulders and handed it to David without a word.
     
    The door had barely closed on the slender, bowed figure when Sandy ground out, ‘I ought to bash your face in, David. She’s not sixteen yet an’ you’re plyin’ her with sloe gin? What’s your game?’
     
    ‘What?’ David stared at the man he had known and respected all his life and for whom he had genuine affection. He had umpteen uncles on his father’s side and several more on his mother’s, but he’d always known that if he was in trouble and couldn’t get to his da, Sandy McDarmount would be the next best thing. He had been working on the screens - the conveyor belts that sorted the splintered coal and stones from the main coal - for six months before he got to go down the pit, and but for Sandy taking him under his wing that first day he doubted he could have stood it. From the moment the cage had begun its mad descent, tearing faster and faster into the bowels of the earth as though it had gone out of control, he had been scared witless. When the gate of the cage had clashed open with such a bang he’d almost filled his pants, it had been Carrie’s father who had guided him along the roadway to his place of work, saying all the right things to a terrified lad of fourteen who had just fully realised he was a hundred-odd fathoms or so beneath the ground. He hadn’t known at that point he would have been considered soft if his own father had looked out for him but that it was acceptable for someone else to take a newcomer on. He had just thanked God for the gravelly-voiced, ginger-haired little man staring at him so fiercely now.
     
    With the past in mind, David’s voice was even and controlled when he said, ‘Hold your horses, man, this is not what you’re thinking. Let me explain.’
     
    ‘Explain be damned! No explainin’ would take away what I’ve seen with me own eyes. That was your jacket round her, wasn’t it, eh? An’ I don’t see no other blighter here with us.’
     
    ‘Now look--’
     
    ‘No, you look, lad. She’s little more than a bairn an’ as good as gold, my lass. There’s plenty in that street out there’ - he thumbed in the direction of the road - ‘who are ready and willin’ for some sport, but my lass isn’t one of them and she’s not tasted liquor afore neither. You’d better stay out of my way for a while, I’m tellin’ you straight.’ And with that Sandy turned and stomped back into the house, ignoring David’s appeal for him to stay.
     
    This was rich, this was. David glared after the older man, anger and irritation vying for first place as he pulled on the jacket that had provoked the accusation against him. All he’d done was to try and comfort the lass, and now he was being blamed for it all. Should he follow Sandy into the house and have his say? Pride said yes,