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quarter of a mile with open fells on one side and low-walled farmland on the other. When the farm cart rounded the first bend in the road there lay ahead a long slow rise, and it was ten minutes later when they reached the top of it. The road on the high ground was rougher and the cart rocked and the coffins moved from side to side in the foot leeway they had, and the children slipped and stumbled and broke the orderly formation of the procession until Cissie's outstretched hand pushed them into place again.
    The sickness in her chest deepened as she looked over the heather-clad hillocks to the right of her and into the distance where lay the river and Jarrow, for it was up here that her da used to bring them on fine Sundays, and he would sit on the highest point and talk to them, always looking towards the river, broadening it for them from the silver thread, which was all they could see, to a vast water on which ships, filled up to the scuppers with coal, set their great sails and went with the wind to London. They followed them on their journeys and all the way back until, filled now with ballast, they would come into Shields and tip it on the foreshore.
    One memorable Sunday her father had brought the scene to life for herself, John, Nancy, and Peter. It was the year before the children died. Setting off at six o'clock in the morning, they had walked all the way to Shields shore and had the most wonderful day of their lives.
    Not only had they seen the town and the life of the river and watched great sailing ships sailing out into the North Sea, but, strangely, the pinnacle of the day for her had been when, on the return journey, their father had led them through Westoe village where the houses of the great were, dozens of them, and they had seen at least twenty beautiful coaches going in and out of drives or standing before glistening brass-adorned doors. It was on that night that the dream had first come to her and she'd seen her whole family living in the most beautiful house; it was low and white with thick walls and the sun was shining on it so brightly that it hurt her eyes to look at it. The dream had since come to her often, and it had never changed.
    After a weary day, as sleep was overtaking her, she would often say to herself, "I hope I have it the night." But it didn't always come. She had told no one about her dream, not even her da, not because it was silly but because it was too precious to share, and she had the feeling that if she ever spoke of it she would never dream it again.
    They were now going downhill and the road was so rough that Jimmy and William had to steady the coffins on the cart.
    They passed through Benham and Brockdale, and people stared to see so many children at a funeral and their expression said it wasn't right.
    Cissie knew what they were thinking but it didn't matter. Her da and ma were going to have a funeral with people at it, and who better than their own family. It it hadn't been such a long way to the cemetery she would have brought the lot of them.
    They passed Rosier's pit just as a shift was coming out and the men, black with red-gapped mouths, stood still until they had passed; then they went through Rosier's village and the stench from the middens engulfed them like a cloud.
    Fifteen minutes later they reached the cemetery gate and here they had to halt, for another funeral was going in and they all stood and stared at it in wonder. The coffin was in a glass box drawn by four black horses, and following it Cissie counted twelve coaches, and behind them almost a hundred people on foot. They had never seen such a spectacle.
    Jimmy turned his dark, thin face towards her and gazed at her in silence, and she returned his look.
    When the last of the long cortege had gone through the gates, the driver got down from the cart and led the horse forward, not up the main driveway but along a side path and to a distant corner of the cemetery, and there, waiting at the end of a long line