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The house stood on the west side of Romney Square. When local kid gangs fought, life was hell, but without them it was a graveyard. The storm in Gladys's soul gathered force. What if the war brought about the end of the world as HG Wells predicted? She believed in omens and the milkman's horse had shied at her that morning: 'Mummy said horses can smell human fear'.

This she understood, since her own sense of smell was acute. Grandpa claimed giving them oats made them mad. It'll be a lousy winter. Damn men and damn their politics. What had politicians ever done for her? The kids were like skeletons and she got nothing but grief from that bastard Parnell. He said the countryside would escape the war - but who'd believe anything he said? Their petrol ration was almost used up yet he was taking Rory joy riding. He talks of nothing but his war. Big deal! Men enjoy killing; they love life in the trenches. If God had truly loved her, Parnell would be rotting in Flanders. When Hitler wins this war women will be used as breeding machines for the Nazis. The milk horse had a face like a bleached skull; the white horse of the Apocalypse. If she didn't force it out of her mind she'd become really ill. Her mother brooded on death and she'd got her mother's mind. She did a twitchy pirouette: 'Imagine this terrible room as the still centre of a collapsing world. Think of anything and listen to the clock; time steals life, mirrors steal beauty, age steals hope'.

She had a nightmare flashback of a clubfoot gypsy who'd tried to sell her lucky white heather on her sixteenth birthday: 'she pointed her claws at me and screamed I'd have three kids and the colour of my eyes would cause great unhappiness, "Violet's a fearsome colour for a girl's eyes".'

She'd slammed the front door in her face: 'Mummy said deformed gypsies are the daughters of Satan. I should have crossed her palm with silver. I didn't need to screw up my future.'

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She moved to the window and lifted a dead butterfly from the sill. 'Why did you die in this awful place, you poor fool?' She raised the sash slightly and flicked it out into the gloom. 'The day can't be this dismal, it's filth on the glass. Parnell leaves money for window cleaners but we are starving half the time and I've more important uses. His meanness kills me. The winter the Titanic sank began like this. When the vicar couldn't visit, people died in Clifton without absolution. The weather was treacherous and he was fat and old. Father said it was the start of a new ice age and he was right, winters are getting colder. At Granny's on Christmas morning in 1911 I was spying on grandfather who was out in the yard with a long knife fixing the goose. He was silly not to be wearing gloves. He said we were all under the good Lord's shield. He had marvellous hands - they run in the family. Mother says our family's hands are famous. Grandpa's were very long with coffee-brown blotches on the back and big blue veins. Mother said men born to high office have Grandpa's kind of hands and he was leader of the parish council. His hands looked best when playing the mandolin but granny didn't let him handle sharp things. She cut the meat, chopped wood and even shaved him. It was totally out of character for him to be handling a great knife. Took me ages to realise what he was doing to the goose but I was nursing my best doll and picturing baby Jesus. Granny had set a big iron saucepan full of potatoes on the fire trivet: "it'll soon be time to make a wish. The goose hasn't got a proper wishbone but wish all the same and wait till new year's day. Angels are sure to bring you something." Wishing took my mind off Grandpa in the yard. Hedges were buried under snow and it was impossible to make out Jake Martin's fields. Daddy said the world was as pure as the blessed Babe's Bethlehem. Grandpa's footprints looked as huge as a giant's.'
Gladys choked a scream: 'Oh God please stop time.'