I’m willing to concede the authorities might not have told you, what with things as they are in the mother country…’

‘They told me I’d be going to school in New Zealand,’ said Jake. ‘That’s what they told my Dad and they told me.’

At which point Mr Pearson stood, scratched his belly and looked down on Jake, then lifted his hand and swiped him across the head. ‘You’ll learn one lesson quick, lad, and that’s don’t answer the wife back. Get that into your thick skull. Understand?’

Darcy Pearson giggled happily. ‘Don’t you worry, Dad. I’ll be helping him understand. Hell’s bells, I’m looking forward to the responsibility.’ He grinned at Jake, this time with menace in his smile.

Jake swayed on his feet. A wave of nausea hit him in the gut and it took what meagre strength he had left to stay upright. Above all, he was tired. He was very tired. Exhausted. This day had brought him much too much. Even the scant comfort offered by the scraps of grey blanket and the stained mattress in his room out the back would be better than this. But they hadn’t finished with him.

‘Let that be a lesson to you,’ Mrs Pearson stared at him. ‘And now, as I was saying…We’ll give you working clothes Darcy has grown out of and you’ll meet the cost of these by not drawing your wages for the first month you’re here. Normally, we’re generous with our worker, but you’re inexperienced so you can’t expect normal rates. You’ll be paid five shillings per week less two-and-sixpence for your board and lodging. That’ll leave you with half a crown. Of course you’ll meet the cost of any damages, breakages, whatever…I hope for your sake you’re not too clumsy.’ Another bark of a laugh.

‘If the wife has finished with you, get to your room,’ said her husband. ‘Up at daybreak. Your first lesson in milking. Thank your lucky stars there’s only a handful in milk so far. Have you ever seen a cow, lad?’

‘I’ve lived in the country,’ Jake whispered. ‘Just for a little while with my Gran…when the bombing was bad.’

‘Not our country,’ said Darcy Pearson. ‘Reckon you haven’t seen cows anything like ours.’

‘And now, get away to bed with you,’ said the woman. ‘Wash your face and hands at the tub in the wash-house. Off you go. You do right by me and Mr Pearson and we’ll do right by you. And make sure you don’t waste the electric.