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had Sickness Benefit, and by the time that finished she was pregnant again, but she miscarried in the third month. Again she was left weak and drained.
    Dora had been desperate not to get pregnant again. She tried to fight Sid in bed, and kick him off. But even with only one arm he was stronger. He begged her and then slapped her about, and most often now pushed into her with a force which frightened her and left her sore, sometimes bleeding, and with an overwhelming sense of shame as if she had done something wrong. When she had the strength, she crept out in the dark afterwards and fetched a pail of cold water to wash herself with.
    As soon as she realized she was carrying this child, for the first time in her life she tried to abort it. She had tried castor oil and Penny Royal syrup and even water which she’d boiled pennies in. She had trembled at the sin she was committing – however ineffective it proved – but even more at the thought of what Sid would do to her if he ever found out. His one remaining source of power was his and Dora’s fertility.
    ‘Think yourself lucky,’ he said to her one night in an ugly mood. He was lying on the bed naked from the waist down, his member lolling to one side on its nest of dark hair. ‘I saw a fella in the army with it all blown away. Where would that leave you, eh?’
    She had been brought too low to feel anything for Sid now. Even pity had been drained out of her. Now when his dreams drove him to cry out in the night she turned away and pushed her fingers into her ears. She had pity now only for her children, and admiration for their pluck and spirit.
    She leaned back into her chair, folding her arms over her swollen stomach and thinking of her kids one by one.
    There was Albert, over in Erdington, whom she hardly ever saw, and Marj, rather smug with her two kids in Sparkbrook. She realized that these two, who could just remember the life before the war, despised what their parents had become. If that was their attitude they could keep away.
    As for Sam, he was a good solid lad. She knew he’d stick by her and look after her. Sticking by people was one of the codes by which Dora lived. Disloyalty figured high on her list of human failures, along with thieving and cruelty to children. She felt Sam had inherited that loyalty from her.
    ‘Don’t worry, Mom,’ he’d kept saying, while he was waiting out his last year at school. ‘I’ll get myself a job soon. I’ll look after you.’ It was a promise he’d kept. He was bringing in ten bob a week which was a start and they made up the rest with odds and sods.
    Then there were the two girls. Dora smiled at the thought of Grace. She was so transparent and shared things with her mother. She used to climb on Dora’s knee and show her the latest picture she’d found of her great passion – the royal family. She was straightforward somehow. Like herself, Dora thought.
    But Rose was more of a mystery. Dora had never worked out why that posh vicar’s daughter Diana wanted to be so friendly with her. She must have had pals with knobs on up at her public school, but she and Rose were still as thick as anything. And she didn’t even seem to mind coming and slumming it down Catherine Street now and then. It was the neighbours who acted suspicious and said, ‘What’s she doing down here again?’
    Dora couldn’t help liking Diana, even if she hadn’t been sure at first what she was after. Her mother’s family were something titled, it was said, and she’d married beneath her. But Diana didn’t put on airs. She always said ‘Mrs Lucas’ so politely. And she was such a pretty lass with all that curly hair round her face. But Rose went up to the vicarage more often than Diana came down here. Rose didn’t want the neighbours gossiping about her or Geraldine Donaghue deliberately messing up Diana’s dress out of envy.
    Rose worried Dora though. She knew her daughter’s contact with the Harper-Watts had shown her a kind of