‘What’s the matter with her?’ Andy sat on the hard-backed settee.
‘She’s going to die, bonny lad. Now move up so your nice-looking friend can get on there with you. The pies will just be a minute or two.’
Every detail of that night came back to Vince whenever he thought of it. It was a lovely night. Nanna Jean sat there and regaled them with stories right into the early hours, feeding them and encouraging them both to talk. Yet all the while Jean was thinking about Iris, her best friend from before the war years, and that she wouldn’t last out the winter. And it turned out that Jean knew Vince’s dad’s family too, which Vince thought was a weird coincidence.
‘Nah, pet!’ Nanna Jean patted his knee. ‘It’s a small world, this one. You watch, when you get a bit older. You’re always crossing each other’s paths in this world. You can’t stop it. And that’s nice. And anyway, if your family came from up here, round this town, then there’s none more likely to know someone that connects them than me.’
‘She’s right,’ Andy said. He was finishing home-made steak pie with a sickening amount of tomato sauce. ‘Nanna Jean knows the whole world.’
‘And who I don’t know I ring up on me phone.’ She patted the heavy, old-fashioned phone beside her armchair. ‘Any family with five sisters and one son is bound to stand out. Aye, I know your people, hinny. And Northspoon is a name that stands out an’ all. You’re from a decent lot, you are.’ She looked at Andy and nodded. Vince started. Something had passed between them.
Minutes later she was up on her tiny feet again, casting an immense shadow on them in the dusky light. It was past four in the morning. She gave Andy quick instructions for making up a bed in the back parlour and then retired to her own. And then she said to them both, ‘Don’t worry about getting up in the morning. Lie in. Don’t worry about anything. It’s been a long night. It’s been a special night. Now you two are new friends. It’s good. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, lads.’
That night they lay on settee cushions and clean sheets in the back room. Vince stared up at the window, at the vase of plastic violets on the sill. And, under the candlewick bedspread, he and Andy held hands all night, their hands red and slippery with sweat and confusion. When the sun came over the terrace backs, into the yard and through the net curtains, Andy was pressing his first kiss on to Vince’s shoulder. Vince turned to meet it.
SEVEN
When she walked into Fran’s kitchen at nine o’clock that evening, Jane’s eyes shone with an eagerness brought on by Babycbam. Fran wasn’t used to seeing her in make-up. She looked oddly overemphasised.
‘I haven’t had this thing on since the honeymoon,’ she announced, twirling quickly on the doormat. It was a lime-green dress that made the best of what she had. Fran applauded. Taking her cue, Jane praised Fran’s new outfit.
It was something she ought to have done straight away. She should have been shocked by this young and expensive new look of Fran’s. But Jane was a coward. To her, Fran didn’t look quite right got up like that, and the lie nearly stuck in her throat.
Fran’s black frock was all the things it was meant to be, classy and alluring and ever so slightly tarty. Nervously submitting to inspection, Fran had the air of a plain but respected actress receiving an award at a glitzy ceremony.
‘You look gorgeous,’ Jane told her.
Fran’s make-up — pale fuchsia lipstick, eyes ringed black like an Egyptian’s — was pure 1965.
‘You’re like one of those sex kittens.’
Fran snorted. ‘It makes a change from being an old dog.’
Jane’s deprecations were stifled by Liz’s entrance. She burst into the kitchen, rattling the blinds, and gleaming from head to toe in skin-tight gold lame.
‘Not a word!’ she cried.
‘No,’ said Fran. ‘It’s… stunning.’
‘It’s very gold,’ Jane said. ‘You’re like something off the telly.’
Liz went to stand under the lampshade. ‘In the shop they called it Golden Sunrise.’
Jane muttered, ‘More like the Crack of Dawn.’
Frank put his head round the door. ‘Are you going then?’
‘Just about.’ Fran shot him a look. She didn’t trust him tonight. He was too acquiescent. ‘You’ll be all right with the bairns?’
‘I’ve set them off stuffing cushions. And I won’t start drinking until all of them are asleep.’
‘Make sure you switch the central heating off, too.’
Liz paid their bus fares with a flourish, instructing them to grab the back seats. It was only when Fran and Jane were sitting down, the engine throbbing right underneath them, that they saw that Liz was talking to the driver — their driver — and telling him where they were off to.
To distract Jane, Fran said, ‘I seem to spend most of my life on the bus.’
Jane watched Liz finishing her little chat. ‘I hate the back seat. It always smells of pee.’
Moving down the aisle towards them, Liz cut a tight swathe of gold through the debris and used tickets. Jane turned to the window. It was dripping with frosty condensation.
‘He’s a sweetie.’ Liz checked the seat for stains and flung herself decorously down.
Jane said, ‘There’s Nesta, talking to someone.’
They all peered out to see Nesta nodding slowly at someone in a camouflage jacket.
‘She’s
