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at home, but they’ll be leaving and all before I know it. So they won’t be putting their money on the table for much longer.’
    His expression clouded. ‘So I’ve got to find myself some work. And not just to occupy me.’ He drained his glass and slammed it on the bar. ‘Someone’s got to pay the bills and buy the food, and this stall might be the answer. But most important, it’ll give me something to do, help me forget my worries. So what d’you think? Will you come and have a look with me? I’d appreciate your opinion.’
    Stephen kept looking at her steadily, directly. She was a beauty all right, a real little Christmas fairy, fit to put right on top of the tree. But had he persuaded her? Would she go with him?
    Nell gulped, feeling herself welling up again.What on earth was wrong with her? She could count on one hand the number of times she’d cried when she was in the home, and now she’d turned into a proper waterworks.
    ‘Of course I’ll come with you, Stephen. It would be my pleasure.’
    ‘Good. Now I need to get back to Bernie.’
    He put his hand on her shoulder, making her sort of shiver inside. She didn’t know how she’d be able to wait until Sunday.
    ‘Nell, darling.’ Sylvia did her best to sound casual as she flicked a feather duster over the already clean bar. ‘Before you go up to bed can we have a word?’
    Nell looked dismayed. ‘What have I done? I’m ever so sorry.’
    Sylvia put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘Nell, I keep telling you: you are not in that bloody place any more. No one’s going to punish you or hurt you. I just wanted to say that I’m worried – and you know what I’m going to say – about the attention Stephen Flanagan was paying you again tonight.’
    Nell didn’t like Sylvia hugging her when she spoke like that. It made her feel guilty, as if she didn’t deserve it. ‘It’s nothing. You mustn’t worry about me.’
    ‘How can I help it? I heard him asking you out on Sunday morning. Again.’
    Nell blushed. ‘He’s thinking about buying a stall.’
    ‘You’ve said yes, haven’t you? You’re going with him.’
    Nell nodded.
    ‘Bloody hell, Nelly. I can’t believe what you see in an old feller like him,’ said Sylvia, thinking, but not daring to add out loud:
Don’t you think there’s something stupid about Stephen bloody Flanagan – that he doesn’t even try to hide whatever it is he’s up to?
    Instead she said, ‘I don’t suppose you ever had a chance to have a boyfriend in that place, did you, let alone go with a man?’
    Nell didn’t answer.
    ‘Here, you haven’t, have you? You haven’t ever been with a bloke?’
    Please God, she hadn’t been with Stephen Flanagan. If she went and got herself knocked up by him, that’d be it. No, it was too horrible to even think about.
    ‘How do you mean, have I ever been with a bloke?’
    Sylvia stepped away from her, rested her elbows on the bar and covered her face with her hands. Did they teach them nothing about the world in that place?
    She dropped her hands, puffed out her cheeks and looked up at the ceiling. ‘This is flaming worse than I thought.’
    Half an hour later, a shocked, yet still rather sceptical Nell swallowed the last of the medicinal port and lemon that Sylvia had insisted she drink, while she continued to listen to the description ofwhat the landlady called, as delicately as she could, ‘having ladies and gentlemen’.
    At least it explained the monthly bleeding in terms other than the matron’s ‘curse of womankind’ that had so frightened her – and the feelings she had had when Stephen Flanagan had stroked her arm.

Chapter 10
    Stephen Flanagan looked so different in his Sunday-best clothes. He had shaved his chin, oiled his hair to a flat, shiny grey cap and, from the glimpse of white peeping out from the neck of his heavy overcoat, Nell could see he had even put a collar on his shirt.
    He handed her a brown paper bag.
    ‘It’s an orange,’ he