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They had to guess which hand. He handed them a threepenny bit apiece.

‘You shouldn't encourage them,' said Elsie.

‘I'll never know what she was thinking,' Aunt Elsie told them as she led the boys back down the hallway. ‘And mind yourselves now.' She shut the front door with a bang.

The youngest boy jumped down the steps one at a time and shoved his hands into his mac pockets. One pocket lifted right up on account of the tear. He ran to catch up with his brother, who was walking stiff and thin down the road.

‘But I liked Aunty Elsie's old house. I thought it were nice. Didn't you, Bill?'

‘Her old house were council. It weren't posh enough. That's what our dad says. And she don't want us to come round any more. Didn't you hear?'

Frowning at the way the world kept shifting around, Peter thought about this as he hopped over the lines between the pavement flagstones. Suddenly he wondered if his aunty had seen the rip in his mac, and he felt hot and burning, even though a fine evening rain was making his face filmy with wet. He knew she'd seen it.

‘Let's go back across the links,' Bill said, brightening, squaring up to the walk back. The links were always an adventure.

Out towards the end of the new housing, they came to rough open land, scraggy fields of grass like fraying string, colourless and papery from the autumn rains. An old nag was tethered in the mist, stretching out its neck to tear at the grass. Before long Peter could feel the marshy wet seeping in through the joins of his canvas pumps. Bill had boots, passed down from their older brother, John. They had
long noses at the front, and they folded across halfway in a deep crease, but they were proper boots.

They ran down to where the land grew wetter and stopped on the wooden planks. A stream appeared in puddles among black mud swamps. This was where you could find sticklebacks in summer. They poked around with a piece of wood in case any were still awake. Suddenly a shudder went through the plank under Peter's feet and he saw Bill throw his arms up and half fall, half slide into the mud with a slopping sound. The plank twanged like a giant ruler. Bill was trying to stagger back towards him, his legs sinking further in, Peter shouting instructions. Bill struggled, twisted and threw himself on the planks and his legs came out, one, two.

‘Where's your boot?' said Peter.

They poked around in the deep mud with sticks till it was almost too dark to see.

‘It's gone,' Peter said in awe.

‘Me dad'll kill us.'

Bill stabbed at the mud some more, and then stood up and wiped at his eyes. They started walking back across the curdled grassland. All the way back, through the streets of Manchester, with the tall buildings lit up and the crowds of people in coats getting off trams, hurrying home. Bill's long muddy sock flapped its tongue along the pavement, the proud hobble thump of his one remaining boot. At least the darkness covered them.

Coming up to the front of their terrace they tried to work out from the look of the house if Dad might be back. Peter had a sick feeling.

Kitty had a soup on the stove, a salty, wet ham-bone smell. Mushy lentils.

‘Look at the state of you two. Don't you go near Doris's communion dress; it's all ironed for tomorrow. Out the back and wash that off under the tap.'

They crossed the kitchen in black socks.

‘And where the bloody hell's your boot?' she yelled from the hall.

When they sat down to a plate of soup Peter was hungry, but the sick feeling in his stomach made it taste too salty.

‘Don't we 'ave no pineapple chunks?' said Peter, suddenly wishing there could be pineapple chunks from a tin, and custard.

‘Listen to 'im! Of course we don't.' Then she softened: ‘Maybe we can get some soon, eh?'

Kitty took the candle up and helped them search the walls for bed bugs. When she found one she held the flame close and burned the small black dot with a tiny spurt of the flame. In the morning they would find red marks on their legs and arms, left by the ones they could not see.

‘What if Bill can't go?' Peter whispered to her in the dark. ‘The teachers won't let him go to town hall wi' only one boot.'

‘What was you doing anyway, miles out there on the links?'

‘We went to see Aunty,' said Peter.

Kitty paused in the doorway as if she might say something, and then she went downstairs.

There was no question of sleeping. They listened out for the sound of Dad coming in, even though it might take half the night. Tomorrow was the school outing and without shoes Bill would not be allowed to go. They'd asked Kitty, they'd racked their brains, but the truth was that they could not make a shoe materialise. Peter lay awake and looked at Bill's one lonely boot sitting mute and resolutely single at the foot of the bed. He could hear the rumble of a brewery cart going past and horses' hooves; boots walking by, shouts and talking; the sound of a car. And worst of all, at the back of their minds, they knew it was a bad idea to tell Dad when he came in, much better to get him in a good mood tomorrow, when maybe they could have a plan. But there was nothing else
to be done. Maybe they would tell him and Dad would come up with something.

He thought of Dad's leather belt singing through the air and his stomach clenched.

Peter woke up spitting fur. Some of the coats that ma had put on the bed still had fur collars, and sometimes the fur got into his mouth, clumped wet and spitty. He saw that Bill was still sitting up tense beside him in bed. Waiting. The candle had burned down. There was the sound of Dad coming in, banging the door shut, stamping off the rain. Humming as he came down the passageway.

Peter and Bill slid out of bed and went and stood together at the top of the stairs. Peter kept shuddering with the cold. Bill had his hands clasped together like a prayer.

Dad started singing a verse from a ballad about roses and hearts, his cap still on, his arms held up to them. Bill couldn't bear it any longer.

‘Dad, Dad, I've lost me boot.'

‘Where is it then?'

‘It's gone in the mud.'

‘Yer what?' he said, the song all disappeared. ‘Come here, you. What have yer done with yer boot? D'you think I'm made of money me?'

There was a swift movement and Bill was pinned against the wall. The smell of beer and smoke reached where Peter was standing. He turned and ran.

There were some little whimpering noises and the swishing sound of the leather belt; thuds against the thin wall. After a while Bill came back up and lay down in the bed, pulled up the coats over him. He was shaking. Downstairs it was still going on, thumps and the crash of the doors opened and shut; Dad in a black mood now. He heard Kitty and Doris running up and shutting their door.

CHAPTER 7

Manchester, 1935

The teacher lined the children up to see if they all had clean hands. She had a comb and passed down the line, running it through the children's hair. She looked down at Bill and Peter.

‘When I picked you boys for this privilege I thought you would at least try and live up to it. But I see you have no feeling at all for the honour of going to hear Handel's
Messiah
by the Halle orchestra at the town hall. Look at the state of you. Well, I can let it pass with Peter, but Bill you have to go home. Those boots must be four sizes too big.'

‘They're me dad's boots, miss.'

‘Well, you can't go staggering around the town hall like that. I don't care if your sister is singing, you're not shaming me like that, my lad.'

Peter turned out of the line to follow him.

‘I didn't tell you to go, Peter,' she shouted.

The town hall had the smell of wet coats and the baked-on paint on iron radiators and was chock full of the backs of people. They found their seats at the top of the top tier with all the other school children, and Peter tried to spot Doris in her white communion dress down in the neat rows of school choirs. He saw her and waved, but the teacher told him off.

Nothing had prepared him for the next couple of hours. Mournful and serious, the singers stood up one by one to announce their plaints. Suddenly there was a rushing sound across the hall as the whole choir stood up in one swoop, and sang straight at him in a huge cloud of sound. He hadn't known. He hadn't known that you could hear something like this. And it went on, and on, not stopping to let him breathe, the music like troops and troops of angels and soldiers all mixed together. A huge pressure inside his chest made him want to cry or stand up and shout.

They came out onto the town-hall steps, back into the Manchester night; people in coats and hats streaming away, brushing past them. The teacher said they could walk home themselves. It had snowed, and the rime of frozen snow lay fresh over the streets and rooftops, the air cold and clear and breathtaking, his toes and fingers stinging. He stared around. Everything was different. Everything had changed.

Dad said he would get some boots. He took Bill and Peter with him, but they didn't head for the shops, or even for the market stalls of second-hand clothes. They went to the football ground. They had to wait in a long queue that went round the side of the walls then filed in through the gates, men and boys in scarves and turned-up collars against the cold. Like the long queues in the big building where Dad went to get his dole. A constant chorus of coughing tuning up and down. The man in front of them spat. Inside, the stands were empty, the pitch brownish and muddy. There were big wooden crates filled with pairs of black boots. If your dad was on the dole they were free, from the football club. Charity shoes; shoes worn by someone else first.

His dad queued as if they were going to some important match. When their turn came he sat down in the stands to try the boots on
Bill's feet, examining them as best he could for the workmanship, for the quality of the leather. Their dad was a man who approved of things being done right: it was his particular misfortune that in spite of his appreciation for the finer things in life, he should have nothing.

Dad told them to get on home and they left him standing at the corner of Hulme Road with the other men who stood all day in the street. His collar turned up, his chin down in his muffler, Dad looked like he was waiting for someone.