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added, ducking back slightly, “an’ you know what that means.”
    “So where are your wages then? I expected them, yes…”
    She didn’t get any further. Bob grabbed Robert round the neck, with one arm, and the carving knife with the other and growled, as he held the blade to his throat, “Now get them coins, now, or I’ll fillet the little runt!” His eyes glinted madly.
    Lil had frozen solid and, seeing the terror in her son’s eyes, rasped, “You harm a single hair on his head, they won’t have to hang you, I’ll…”
    He pressed the blade even harder, eyes glowering, and she was backing off slowly towards the fireplace. She turned and lifted one of the tiles on the hearth, reached inside a hole underneath and pulled out a small leather bag. It was bulging with coins, more than a week’s worth. With a seething and terrified look in her eyes, she tossed the bag to him, and it chinked as it struck the boards.
    Bob grinned as he shoved the boy away. He picked it up; it was deliciously heavy. He tossed it up and down a couple of times and whacked the knife into the table, where it stood quivering. He headed for the door, feeling as though he’d struck gold.

Nine
    Bob stayed away all the rest of that day and the next, and it was pretty obvious that by then, every penny had gone on booze.
    Lil had a deadline to aim for. March 25th, the day when King would be along for the rent.
    By that time, she not only had to scrape together the two pounds for it, but enough to feed them too, for it also became more clear with every passing day that Bob really had been sacked from the factory.
    She knew something else too, that if the worst came to the worst, he would conveniently be out of the way when the knock came and she would never see him again.
    The day she and Robert were taken into the workhouse, they would be separated, as it was deemed inappropriate that parent and offspring should work together, in case of sentiment impinging on their productivity.
    If that happened, her life might as well be over.
    The days began to blur into one, with that terrible day looming ever closer, and every so often, Bob did turn up, but only for money, food or sex.
    A sort of nerve war ensued, where he would demand payment, knowing she had been sitting at the ball from dawn to dusk. He beat her up on three occasions, the last time raping her on the parlour floor when she refused him, and knocking one of her back teeth out.
    After this, and by now in fear of hers and Robert’s lives, she started hiding about two thirds of the money in one place, and conveniently letting him ‘find’ the rest, after an often violent tussle, so as to dampen his suspicions.
    And then, before she knew it, there was just one day left to go.
    Today was March the 24, a Sunday, and she had not managed to scrape the money together. She had only amassed about three quarters, and short of stealing the rest, had no idea how to get it. People would take a very dim view if she sat outside with her ball on the Sabbath; not that she would earn enough anyway.
    Bob had staggered home from the Dog and Duck at midday, so drunk he could barely stand up and had stood outside the front door, shouting in each direction that he would take on any man who could fight.
    Nobody obliged and most laughed. He had been sick, reeled indoors, and fallen asleep in one of the armchairs, where a bomb wouldn’t shift him.
    Lil had gone to church, where she sometimes sang solo, and taken Robert with her. She had worn her best dress for the occasion, and a floral bonnet, though both had nourished the moths. She had felt her cheeks flush as she saw Michael O’Driscoll watching her, trying hard to avoid his gaze.
    Determined her only son would be a credit to her, Lil had dressed Robert in a clean, pressed shirt, and trousers, and combed his hair just so.
    His shoes, old as they were, were polished, and he had found his weekly dip in the tin bath that hung on the back door, a more harrowing