As he grew, Mrs Wilson, who had no children of her own, took him under her wing, gave him little jobs and helped him along with his reading. - P9
Now, he lived in the town with his wife, Eileen, and their five daughters. - P10
Years later, when he’d gone into the registry office for a copy of his birth certificate, Unknown was all that was written in the space where his father’s name might have been. The clerk’s mouth had bent into an ugly smile handing it out to him, over the counter. - P10
But it cut him, all the same, to see one of his own so upset by the sight of what other children craved and he could not help but wonder if she’d be brave enough or able for what the world had in store. - P16
That evening, when they got home, Eileen said it was well past time they made the Christmas cake. Good-humouredly, she took down her Odlum’s recipe and got Furlong to cream a pound of butter and sugar in the brown delft bowl with the hand mixer while the girls grated lemon rind, weighed and chopped candied peel and cherries, soaked whole almonds in boiled water and slipped them from their skins. For an hour or so they raked through the dried fruit, picking stalks out of sultanas, currants and raisins while Eileen sifted the flour and spice, beat up bantam eggs, and greased and lined the tin, wrapping the outside with two layers of brown paper and tying it, tight, with twine. - P16
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