Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance

put it into words. But she knew through bitter experience how it could corrupt a person's nature. Their mother hadn't always been the drunkard she had turned into and Bella somehow understood this. She sensed the sinful nature of Mary's work and the crucifying poverty of their lifestyle, though she suspected that once upon a time her mother had been a child too. Perhaps with a brother or sister or both, and part of a real family. Mary Doyle had been innocent once. Before she had turned into a wild animal and lay with men to earn her living. And the blame for this degradation, Mary had daily informed Bella, lay squarely on her children's heads. They were bastards, appearing unbidden in her life. At the best of times, the sight of them was almost more than she could bear. At the worst, she left them alone with Jack Router.

'What we going to do?' Terry mumbled, trembling with the cold, his hand frozen inside Bella's.

'We'll wait a bit, right? Till they go out again.'

'But the planes might come over.'

Bella shook her tousled and filthy copper curls. 'They won't come over tonight. It's Christmas. Even the Germans know that.'

'Do Germans have kids as well?'

'Course they do.'

'Do they give 'em presents?'

'Dunno. Might do.'

Terry leaned his slight weight against her and Bella sighed heavily. All the buildings in Bow Street were condemned. She knew that because she'd read the notice nailed to their door. "This dwelling is considered unfit to live in and is condemned by the council."

But this had been in the summer before the Blitz started. Since then, the paper had worn away and life had gone on much the same, Blitz or no Blitz. Bella had been thankful that at least, she and Terry still had a roof over their heads. More so, when Mary and Jack were not sleeping or fighting underneath it.

Now snow was drifting across the street and Bella's stomach churned emptily. She had stowed a crust of bread between the floor and the bug-ridden mattress they slept on in a corner of the cottage. Bella had planned to share it with Terry as soon as they'd got home from the debris where they'd been looking for anything of value left over from the raids. But today they had come home empty-handed. And they'd been waiting an eternity in the hopes that the cottage would soon be vacated.

'They must be asleep,' Bella decided, taking off her coat and folding it around Terry's shoulders. It wasn't much protection; threadbare and darned, it was the only comfort she could give him. If only Terry could remember to dress himself properly. He didn't seem to know what kept him warm and what didn't. He had a habit of forgetting and Bella was always looking out for him.

'I don't like it here,' Terry complained, his bare knees knocking under his short, raggedy trousers. 'I'm cold. I wanna go in.'

'So do I,' Bella agreed impatiently. 'But not for a bashing. And we'll get one, as they won't be in no mood to see us.'

'Where we going, then?' Terry asked forlornly, swiping the running snot from his nose. 'To Micky's?'

'Don't reckon Micky would like that, either,' Bella said, shivering in her thin dress that was more tears and holes than fabric. 'It's Christmas Day. His mum will be dishing up the dinner.'

Micky Bryant was their benefactor. The one light in Bella's dark life. He was twice as old as her, but he didn't seem like it. He seemed like her other half. He looked out for them. And all the other street kids. He paid them for what they found. And sometimes gave them grub. He told them to keep shtum, as if his mum knew he was knocking off stuff, she wouldn't be best pleased.

Micky had two brothers too. Sean was all right. But Bella didn't care for the oldest one. She'd seen him at a distance and he looked - well, she didn't know how he looked. But she suspected he wouldn't encourage Micky's friendship with kids from the slums. Micky would laugh at that if she told him. He'd give her a wink and roll his lovely eyes. Micky didn't have airs and graces. Not like his brother, Ronnie.

'I'd like an 'ot dinner,' Terry said hopefully, his thin face and hollowed dark eyes under his thin black hair looking to Bella, like the face of an angel. A dirty, grubby, smelly little angel, but an angel none the less. She loved Terry with all her heart. She'd cared for her baby brother since the day he was born. Mary had brought him into this world with language so foul that even the old girl - who was always in at the deliveries - had turned away in disgust.

Bella remembered the violence of her mother's labour. As though she cursed nature and everything in it for her unwanted condition. But to Bella the miracle of birth had opened her young eyes to the first sensation of love. The blood soaked newspaper on the floor where Terry had suddenly appeared from between Mary's legs had seemed like a royal blanket of welcome. The old girl had slapped his silent body, all mauve and sticky with blood, and Bella had held her breath as she listened for Terry's first cry.

When it came, it was as if her own lonely heart had called back. And because there was no where else to put him, Bella had reached out and there he was! In her arms. This speck of life, staring up at her, with eyes like jewels in an old man's wrinkled face. She'd loved him from the off. And instinct had told her to keep him safe. So she'd kept him away from Mary until his pathetic screams had to be silenced by her huge, milk-swollen breasts. Mostly Mary had fallen asleep and Bella had held him there, snuggled up to the round fullness, his tiny fingers pleated around Bella's as