SIX

      Meg might never have got round to mentioning her meeting Joy if it hadn’t been for Billy telling them that evening about meeting a kind lady.

      ‘And who is this kind lady?’ Charlie asked.

      Billy shrugged and said, ‘Dunno, but she bought us egg on toast and doughnuts and her name is Joy and she don’t half talk a lot.’

      They all laughed and Terry put in, ‘Surprised you noticed that, Billy. Bit like pot calling kettle.’ for everyone knew Billy was a chatterbox.

      Charlie, though, was more interested in who the ‘kind lady’ was. He knew because of what she had taken on that Meg had few friends now, and certainly not one who would treat her and her young brother to egg on toast and doughnuts.

      ‘Billy’s right,’ she told her father. ‘Her name is Joy, Joy Tranter. She’s the girl from Lewis’s that took me up to the interview the day Mom fell in the yard.’

      ‘Fancy her remembering you all this time.’

      Meg nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I mean only saw her for a short time and yet we sort of hit it off. I thought we might have become friends if I’d worked there.’

      Charlie heard the wistfulness in Meg’s voice and felt guilty that she had no friends her own age. ‘Haven’t you seen her since?’

      ‘Just once before today,’ Meg said. ‘She goes to the Bull Ring often on a Friday because it’s her pay day and she has a mooch around the shops and treats herself to a snack in the Market Hall café, but normally I have to be home for the children at twelve so I leave before her dinner hour.’

      ‘So what happened today?’

      ‘I had to buy some winter clothes for Ruth today, remember?’ Meg said. ‘The children sorted themselves out.’

      ‘And it did them no harm, I would say,’ Charlie said. He looked from one child to the other. ‘Did it?’

      ‘No, Dad,’ they chorused.

      ‘So can you do that every Friday so Meg has a chance to meet her friend?’

      They all nodded solemnly, and Meg was touched by her father’s consideration and the children falling in with his plan so readily. ‘I didn’t think you would be so keen on me going every week.’

      ‘Why on earth not?’ Charlie said. ‘God, Meg it’s not much to ask.’

      ‘And I am not helpless,’ Terry said. ‘I am twelve, you know, not two.’

      ‘I could leave you some soup or something just to heat up.’

      ‘There’s no need.’

      ‘Well, I’ll leave the details up to you,’ Charlie said. ‘But in the meantime, Meg, while it was very nice of your friend to treat you today, I shouldn’t think she earns that much so she wouldn’t want to do it every week.’

      ‘I shouldn’t want her to do it either,’ Meg said.

      ‘No, I will give you separate money for yourself.’

      ‘How?’ Meg asked. She knew how finely the finances were balanced.

      ‘Never you mind how,’ Charlie said, knowing he would have to cut back on the ciggies and beer to give Meg an extra five bob a week, but he thought there was nothing to be gained by telling her this.

      Christmas grew nearer. Although it was only six months since their mother died Meg wanted to make Christmas Day a special one for Jenny, Sally and Billy, who still believed in Santa Claus.

      Her aunt Rosie could see her point and suggested Meg talk to her father lest he be upset, so she mentioned it to him as they sat over a cup of tea one evening. He was quiet when she had finished and she feared she had offended him.

      ‘Do you think me awful, Dad?

      ‘For what exactly?’

      ‘You know, planning to celebrate Christmas and all with Mom dead less than six months?’

      Charlie thought for a little while and then he said, ‘No, Meg I don’t think you’re awful. You knew your mother almost as well as I did and she wouldn’t have wanted us to mourn for ever.’

      Meg nodded. ‘I know.’

      ‘Or for the young ones to miss out because she isn’t here anymore. She loved everything about Christmas,’ Charlie said, and a smile tugged at his mouth as he recalled his wife’s excitement in past years as the season approached.

      Meg smiled in memory too. ‘Yes, she was worse than the children, stringing up the streamers and decorations and adorning the tree.

      ‘She never minded all the cooking,’ Charlie said. ‘She revelled in it, she did, and the house used to smell beautiful with all the delicious food and cakes and puddings and all she cooked. Do you remember?’

      ‘Of course.’ Her mother’s enthusiasm had engendered a love of Christmas in all of the children; even Meg’s toes would curl in anticipation as it grew near.

      ‘Do you know what I think we must do?’ Charlie said suddenly. ‘This is our first Christmas without Maeve and we owe it to her to have the very best Christmas we can in her memory. That would be what she would want us to do, and for children that means presents.’

      ‘I’ve been saving for months,’ Meg said proudly.

      ‘So how much have you saved?’ Charlie asked.

      ‘Nearly two pounds and ten shillings.’

      ‘Well done,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re almost as good a manager as your mother.’

      That was high praise indeed, for her father was always saying her mother could make sixpence do the work of a shilling, and then he surprised her still further by putting a ten-pound note in her hand. She had never seen so much money at one time and she stared at it in amazement. ‘Where did you get it?’

      Charlie laughed. ‘You can get that look off your face, girl, because I didn’t rob a bank. It’s part of the Christmas Club that I have to pay into every year. It’s taken out of my wages and ensures that we all have a good Christmas. Use it to get some things for the young ones, at least.’

      ‘I will, Daddy,’ Meg said. Joy’s going to help me choose