looked doubtful. ‘What does an earl’s daughter want to be wiping people’s backsides for, then?’
‘Search me, Nan.’ Dora was mystified too. She’d tried asking her about it, but Millie had gone into a long explanation she didn’t follow about wanting to be independent and make her own way in the world before she married some rich lord.
As if there was anything good about working your fingers to the bone, Dora thought. She knew a few women who would gladly give it up for a life of idle luxury and no bills to worry about.
‘Hello, what’s he doing out there?’ Nanna said, twitching back the net curtain to peer outside.
‘Who? Who’s out there?’ Bea was first at the window, pressing her nose against the steamy glass to see. ‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. ‘It’s only Danny Riley.’
‘What’s he doing?’ Rose asked.
‘Just sitting on the coal shed. He does it sometimes.’ Bea went back to bossing Little Alfie.
‘In the rain?’ Dora said.
Bea shrugged. ‘I don’t think he notices. It’s ’cos he’s funny in the head.’
‘Beatrice Doyle! You’d better not let his brother hear you saying that!’ Rose said.
‘Why not? It’s true. Anyway, Nanna says it.’
‘I do not!’ Nanna Winnie looked indignant.
‘You do! You said—’
‘That’s enough. I don’t care who said it, I don’t want it repeated,’ Rose said firmly. ‘The poor boy’s got enough to cope with, without the likes of us going round calling him names.’
Dora pulled back the net curtain and peered through the rain streaming down the window pane. Danny Riley sat on top of next door’s coal shed, his knees tucked under his chin, staring with vacant, glassy eyes, oblivious to the rain that plastered his hair to his face.
Dora caught his eye and waved. He gave her a shy, lopsided smile and ducked his head away.
‘Poor little bleeder,’ Nanna said. ‘When I think about what a bright little boy he used to be, running around playing games in the street with our Josie.’
He was fifteen years old, but he had the mind of a child. No one really knew what had happened to make Danny Riley the way he was. His mum June always said it was an accident, a bad fall when he was eleven years old. Whatever it was, it caused bleeding in his brain that had almost killed him.
As usual in Griffin Street, there were rumours. Everyone knew June’s husband Reg had been handy with his fists. But whatever had happened to poor little Danny, it must have terrified his father because the day his son was rushed to hospital Reg had disappeared, never to be seen again.
‘He can’t sit out there in the rain, he’ll catch his death,’ Rose declared. ‘Call him in, Dora.’
She went to the back door and called out to him through the rain, ‘Where’s your mum, Danny?’
‘Out shopping.’
‘Shopping, my eye! Down the pub, more like!’ Nanna Winnie muttered from inside the house.
Dora ignored her. ‘Do you want to come in and get warm by our fire?’ she said.
He eyed her warily from beneath his dripping fringe. ‘Nick says I’m not to go nowhere with no one.’
‘Nick won’t mind you being with us. Come inside and dry off,’ Dora coaxed him. ‘We’ll listen out for Nick coming home and let him know where you are.’
Reluctantly, Danny slithered down from his perch and edged through the gap in the broken fence. He stood dripping on the kitchen rug, a forlorn sight with his bony wrists poking out of the shrunken sleeves of his jersey.
‘Come on, Danny, let’s get that jumper off you,’ Rose said. ‘Josie, run and fetch one of Alf’s old shirts from the mending.’
Five minutes later Danny was huddled by the fire, steam rising gently from his sodden trousers. Alf’s shirt swamped his scrawny frame.
‘Ugh, he smells!’ Bea whispered loudly, her nose wrinkling.
‘So would you, if your mother didn’t look after you properly,’ Rose hissed back. ‘Now be quiet, or Father Christmas might decide to give this house the go-by!’ She beamed at Danny. ‘Time for those mince pies to come out of the oven, I reckon. Are you hungry, Danny?’
He nodded, his eyes round in his pale, narrow face. A thin trail of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
‘Look at him,’ Nanna said pityingly as he tucked into a hot mince pie. ‘I wonder when the poor little sod last had a decent meal? He’s all skin and bone.’
Danny ate half the pie, then pulled a grubby handkerchief out of his pocket.
‘What’s he doing?’ Bea watched, fascinated,