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clothes and pushed his feet into his boots and fled out of the front door, across the garden to the path which was a short cut to the main road and the doctor’s house.
    Rose felt her mother’s face with the back of her hand. Oh, God, it was so cold. She put coal on the fire from the scuttle by the side. The children crowded round her, crying softly now.
    ‘Rose, Rose!’ they cried, and after a moment she put an arm round them both and hugged them to her. All three of them stared at their mother’s face, willing her to open her eyes.
    ‘It’s because she got out of bed, isn’t it, Rose?’ Michael said. ‘She’ll be all right when she’s had a sleep, won’t she?’

Chapter Six
    ‘The poor woman’s had a seizure,’ Kate said to Marina. She lifted her half-eaten dinner out of the oven where Marina had put it to keep hot when Mary Sharpe had come running up the yard, crying her heart out.
    ‘Rose says can you come, Mrs Morland?’ she had gasped.
    ‘Why, what’s the matter?’ Kate was rising to her feet even as she asked. ‘Is it your mam?’
    Mary had nodded, and wiped the tears and snot from her face with the back of her hand. ‘Me mam … she’s bad,’ she had said, and hiccupped and sniffed together.
    ‘I’ll have to go.’ Kate was already halfway to the door.
    ‘Why, man, what about your dinner?’ grumbled Sam. ‘You’ll make yoursel’ bad next, running after folk.’
    Kate ignored that as did Marina. ‘I’ll keep your dinner hot, Mam,’ she said, and tried to persuade Mary to stay. ‘I’ll give you a plate, too,’ she coaxed, but Mary didn’t even hear. She was out of the door in front of Kate and away like the wind. Kate didn’t even take off her pinny, but followed as she was, even to her house slippers.
    Marina, her father and Lance were left to eat their meal and speculate on what was wrong.
    ‘Mind, she must be bad for Alf Sharpe to let anybody in. The man’s going off his head,’ Lance commented. ‘On the booze, no doubt.’
    ‘Nay, he couldn’t hold down that job if he was a boozer,’ his father returned. ‘I know he gets a skinful on a weekend but he doesn’t drink when he’s going to work. He’d soon get the boot if he did.’
    ‘Aye, well, the day may come,’ said Lance. ‘But anyroad, if he ever treats me like he treats the young lads he has under him, he’ll soon know the feel of my fist.’
    ‘Don’t talk so soft, lad –’
    Marina’s thoughts wandered off. Somehow she couldn’t finish her meal. She got to her feet and took her plate through to the sink. She scraped the food into the scrap pail and rinsed the plate under the tap before going back into the kitchen and lifting the rice pudding out of the oven and serving it to the men. Afterwards she took the scrap pail down to the allotments to where ‘Farmer’ Brown, a neighbour and her dad’s friend, kept a sow and litter. Farmer, as his nickname implied, loved working with animals and on the land. The fact that he dug coal for a living was some joke of the gods, according to Sam.
    Peeping down John Street, she saw the doctor’s car outside the Sharpe house. Should she go along after her mother and see if she could help? No, she’d only get in the way. But she felt so sorry for Rose, and after all she was her friend. Marina could think of nothing else for the next hour until her mother got back. By then the men had gone up to bed for their time-honoured Sunday afternoon nap.
    ‘A seizure?’ Marina said now. ‘Is that like a stroke?’
    ‘Aye. Just a fancy name for it,’ said Kate. ‘I offered to take the twins but Alf wouldn’t have it. Said he’d telephoned the post office at Shotton, his sister lives near to it. “She’ll be through on the next bus,” he said. And practically pushed me out of the door.’
    ‘I didn’t know Rose had an aunt,’ said Marina.
    ‘Aye, well, she has evidently. Let’s hope she’s not as queer as her brother. After all, I helped Rose change her