LITMIR.BIZ

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is just the way it is.’

      There was an old lady sitting on the doorstep of one of the terraced houses opposite, with some tired-looking knitting in her lap. She must have thought Florence was waving and she waved back.

      Florence tossed her head in disgust and turned away. But Annie waved to their new neighbour and gave her a tired smile. ‘That’s Mrs Brockett, that old lady over there,’ Annie said. ‘She’s lived here all her married life. She’s actually very nice.’

      Florence peered down her nose and looked at Annie as if she was mad. ‘How on earth did you come to that conclusion? The poor old thing looks like she’s a permanent fixture in that chair.’

      Annie laughed, trying to lighten the mood. ‘You’re right there, Mother. I think she sits out on the doorstep every day unless it’s raining, but I had a chance to chat to her before you arrived.’

      ‘Did you, indeed?’ Florence didn’t look impressed and she actually shuddered.

      ‘As long as we’re stuck here she might turn out to be a very useful lady to know. She seems to know most of what goes on in the street,’ Annie said.

      ‘I hope you didn’t tell her any of our affairs?’ Florence’s reprimand was as swift as it was sharp. ‘I know I certainly shan’t be giving her the time of day.’

      Annie ignored her mother. ‘She thinks we’re very fortunate that we have our own lavatory and she says we should be grateful we have a tap for water actually in the kitchen.’

      ‘Grateful? For a lavatory and running water? Are you mad, girl?’ Now her father spoke up. ‘This is the end of the 1920s. Surely everyone has water and water closets these days?’

      ‘It seems not,’ Annie said carefully. ‘Not round here at any rate. But, apparently, it’s a real bonus having our own lavatory, just for the family’s use. Although …’ She hesitated, thinking of their old home. ‘It is outside.’ She tried not to pull a face as she said this for she didn’t want to tell them just yet that it would need a jolly good clean before any of them could think of using it. ‘Apparently,’ she thought she’d better add, ‘many of the houses in these terraces have to share a toilet with half the street. And there are several who have to carry their water indoors in buckets that they fill from some kind of communal standing pipe in the yard.’

      Annie thought her mother was going to faint when she said this, so she quickly pushed open the front door and ushered them inside. But that didn’t improve either of her parents’ demeanours. Florence looked so lost and bewildered standing in the middle of the single downstairs room that was to serve as a living room-cum-kitchen for the three of them that Annie almost felt sorry for her. But when Florence wailed, ‘We can’t possibly live here! There’s no room for anything,’ Annie thought she would lose patience. She watched Edward and Florence as they stood regarding the few meagre items they had begged to salvage from the bailiffs, while the rest were ignominiously sold, together with the bedding they had been allowed to keep. The few selected items of clothing they had clung on to had been bundled up like rags and lay discarded by the front door.

      ‘At least there’s two separate bedrooms upstairs,’ Annie said quickly, hoping to distract them. ‘They’re off a small landing.’ She indicated the stairs at the back of the room.

      ‘And where will the servant sleep?’ Florence enquired.

      Then Annie’s patience snapped. She felt so exasperated at her mother’s inability to grasp the magnitude of the tragedy that had befallen them that she thought she was going to scream out loud. She herself was struggling to understand what had happened to them, but how could she get it into her mother’s head that life was never going to be the same as it had once been? When Florence began to cry, it was all Annie could do not to strike out and hit her. Surely she, as the child, was the one who needed her parents’ support?

      ‘Shall I show you the bedrooms?’ Annie said, gritting her teeth. ‘Then you can see for yourself exactly how much room there is.’

      Florence shook her head. ‘Not just yet, dear. I haven’t the strength.’

      There was a wooden table and a bench and two chairs that had been left by the previous tenants by the window in the front room. Florence wiped the seat of one of the chairs with her white lawn handkerchief and sat down. She also tried to wipe away the powdery film of dust that covered the scratched wood of the table, but when she leaned against it the table wobbled back and forth, so she pulled back, sitting up as straight as she could. Edward sat in the other chair without paying heed to the dust that was being transferred from the splintered wooden seat to his best Crombie overcoat. Annie kept her back as erect as possible when she took a place on the bench.

      They all stared in the direction of the window, though it was too grimy to see out of it. Suddenly, there was a wailing sound that made Annie jump.

      ‘What’s going to become of us?’ It was Florence who had cried out. ‘And what’s going to happen to our lovely home? Who’s going to look after it until we’re ready to go back?’ She prodded her husband who was sitting beside her, looking bemused. ‘We can’t desert it now, Edward. It’s been in your family for generations.’ She shook her head from side to side as though in disbelief. ‘The beautiful summerhouse and the old oak tree down by the lake … I know how much you love it all, Edward. Will the gardener really look after it while we’re away? How much will he do if you’re not there to prod him and remind him?’ She covered her face with her hands for a moment.

      ‘You can ask my father about the house and the estate when you next see him,’ Edward growled angrily. Scowling, he kicked a piece of garden rubble from where it had stuck to his shoe to the other side of the stone floor.

      ‘Don’t be disrespectful of the dead.’ Florence sounded horrified.

      ‘What respect did he show me when he left me the legacy of all his debts? Don’t call me disrespectful, madam, when it’s me who’s had to sacrifice the family inheritance to pay off his creditors. When it’s me and my family who’ve been reduced to this.’ He looked round the room in disgust. ‘How can you respect someone who, despite his years, still had no idea what made for a good business deal and what made for a bad investment?’

      ‘I always thought Grandpa was rich,’ Annie intervened, for she recognized the expression on her father’s face as one that meant they were in for a long harangue.

      ‘He was when I was a young lad. But I was too young to understand that money was leaking out of the estate faster than it was coming in. As I grew older, if ever I questioned anything, he always found ways to cover up his incompetence.’ Edward closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I can’t say I blame the family entirely for turning their backs on us. I suppose we must look like a piteous lot.’

      At this Florence had a fresh outburst of tears. ‘Not one of them put out a hand to help. I wouldn’t have expected the bailiffs to show much sympathy, but Edward, your own brothers? I ask you.’

      ‘I know.’ Edward sounded resigned. ‘Charity begins at home, I told him. But that meant nothing to him. He was too busy feeling smug about how he had managed to hang on to his own fortune that, fortunately for him, had nothing to do with the family’s money.’

      ‘Uncle William was in the same position but at least he did find you a job,’ Annie chipped in.

      ‘Doing what?’ Edward was scornful. ‘As a clerk at a mill?’

      ‘A senior clerk,’ Florence corrected him.

      ‘A clerk nevertheless,’ he repeated. ‘At Fletcher’s Mill. In the worst part of Clitheroe I’ve ever seen.’

      ‘At least Uncle William was true to his word,’ Annie said as patiently as she could. ‘You said the mill does have a job for you?’

      Edward nodded. ‘I suppose that’s something. I understand there’s not much work about these days.’

      ‘I know,’ Annie said. ‘The country is

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