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me a very thin profit margin.’ He passed the ring back over the counter. ‘But perhaps you would like to try one or two other shops?’
    Evelyn didn’t have time to try other shops, she’d left Amelia playing with a rag doll in her bedroom. The child was three now, and sensible for her age because Evelyn was very strict with her. She had been warned not to leave the room, and wouldn’t dare disobey her mother. They never had visitors, nor were they friendly with the neighbours. The women to either side had held out the hand of friendship to Evelyn the day they’d moved into the house, offering to mind the child while she got her furniture sorted out and was settled in. But all they had received in reply was a frosty stare, for she regarded them as being of a lower class than herself. They’d shrugged their shoulders and given up on her. Even now, after three years, she would pass them in the road without a glance. They felt sorry for the little girl because she was seldom taken out for a walk in the fresh air, even though there was a park nearby with swings which all the local children used. Except Amelia Sinclair.
    ‘I’ll take what you are offering, and would like to complete the transaction quickly, as I really must get home to my child.’
    As Evelyn pushed the white five-pound notes into her handbag, her mind went back to the time she was getting as much money in her monthly allowance from Mr Lister-Sinclair. And she’d had no bills to pay out of it so it mostly went on clothes. She sighed as the tram came to a halt and she stepped on board. She would have to be very careful with this money, it would have to last until Amelia was old enough for school and she herself could look for work in one of the offices in the city centre. She had thought many times that she should be entitled to a pension from the Army; with Charles having been a Captain it would probably be a decent one. But she was afraid that with his father being down as next-of-kin, he would probably be notified if she put in an application. It was years now since she’d had any contact with the Lister-Sinclairs, or her own parents who had disowned her for blackening their name. Nor had she seen Gwen or Oscar, but that didn’t worry her because she’d hate them to know of her drastically reduced circumstances.
    Amelia was holding the rag doll to her chest when Evelyn opened the bedroom door. ‘I’m hungry, Mother, can I have some bread, please?’
    ‘Yes, and I’ve got a treat for us. I bought some boiled ham, tomatoes and a nice crusty cottage loaf. And we’ll have real best butter on the bread.’ Evelyn found nothing strange in talking to her three-year-old daughter as if she were a grown-up, or that in return she was called ‘Mother’, not Mammy or Mummy. ‘I’ve also bought a cream sponge cake for dessert, so we are eating well tonight. But it’s only because it’s a special occasion, so don’t expect it every day. I’ll have to be careful with money.’
    Despite her good resolutions, with money in her purse Evelyn could not resist the finer things in life, and in eighteen months the money she’d got for her engagement ring had dwindled to a few pounds – not enough to send her daughter to a high school in six months when she’d be five. The thought of any child of hers attending a corporation school filled her with despair. Neither could they stay on in this house because the rent had gone up over the years to four shillings a week, and it was such a draughty place it took two bags of coal a week to keep it warm. So once again Evelyn had to lower her sights, and was forced to move to a working-class area, with street after street of two-up-two-down houses occupied by families who were lucky if they saw a square meal once a week. There was a lot of unemployment there, dozens of men chasing after every vacancy. They would turn their hand to anything to put food on the table for their families, but life was hard and poverty was