It was very crowded, but a man had given Cynthia his seat, seeing that she was carrying a small infant. She slid in gratefully beside the grimy, steamed-up window, pushing her little bag in at her feet. She had begged and begged Bob not to send her away. Every nerve in her body was screaming that she didn’t want to go, leaving home and her other children, but she knew there was no choice. Bob had made that abundantly clear. Now she was on her way to Olive’s neat little terrace in Kings Heath, a suburb south of the city. Olive’s letter had come by return of post, brisk and chilly as ever, in reply to Cynthia’s enquiry. ‘Bob thinks I should get away for a little while. I haven’t been quite myself since the last child . . .’ Bob had hurried off to post it for her, as if he couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. ‘You’d better come, then, if you must,’ her younger sister had written in her stiff, copperplate hand. ‘If that’s how it is. But I’m not offering charity, you’ll have to pay your keep.
