dustnik - As my first reviewer of this fic, you made my day. Thank you so much for your comment. :)

Manygreentrees – Glad you liked the imagery. Years back, my brother ripened green tomatoes on the windowsills once, which is where I got the idea from! It was so funny seeing them there… :D

Anna Bates Fan – It wasn't just too few reviews, it was also that nobody had Followed or Favourited, so, even though many people read it, apart from dustnik's review, I couldn't tell whether anybody actually enjoyed reading it. Love Anna, she is my favourite character after Thomas, the children and Phyllis Baxter.

Guest – I love writing about children so Thomas's childhood intrigues me.

***Chapter Three***

Despite his thick overcoat, an icy shiver ran down his spine and Thomas Barrow suddenly remembered how cold he was and how sharply that bitter wind so cruelly stung his eyes. The smell of food had been assailing his nostrils for some time, causing his stomach to growl in acknowledgement, while the red glow of the brazier on the opposite side of the cobble-stoned road beckoned fair welcome to friend and stranger alike with the promising warmth of its small red fire. His senses captured, his purchase made, a few pleasantries exchanged with the hot potato seller, and his body warmed and hunger sated, he thought to move on, to return to Downton and his duties, for the matter which brought him back to the streets of his childhood was concluded now, and there was nothing more to keep him here.

But I've heard tell of how some folk believe rainbows are filled with hopes and dreams and yesterdays. Perhaps that was why his aching heart called on him to look back again.

XXXXX

Grinning, Paul Latham stops using the cap to fan his face and begins waving it frantically at his best friend, whom he had already espied at the window and thought to tease by feigning ignorance of his presence. Catching the joke, Thomas waves back with equal fervour and equally wide grin. If it wasn't for the fact his father is in the shop below and bound to see, or at least hear, his exit, he would run downstairs immediately. But if The Monster happens to glance out of the plate glass window – indeed, he may already have done so! - and sees his friend and Thomas together their well guarded secret would blow open and be secret no longer. How little now the stupid, obnoxious little man suspects and how much fun it is to flirt with danger as well as each other! Oh, they are far too smart for a dullard like William Nathaniel Barrow and outwit him at every turn!

Paul will have a glib story to hand should The Monster be curious enough to ask the reason for his waving the cap – chasing away a wasp, he'll say, or perhaps an innocent "Why, I was waving to you, Mr Barrow!" - or perhaps even, he thought the would try fanning his head from above, which he'd heard as being the new, fashionable way to cool down (Thomas snickers to himself at his own unfettered imagination; he really must share that wonderfully wild suggestion with his friend). But never for a moment will his father dream that, in the seemingly innocuous act of waving his cap, Paul has sent a message to his sweetheart, for only they know that the three clockwise circles he turned too is their signal for I Love You.

Paul, as he needs must in order to avoid arousing the suspicion they have so carefully circumnavigated, returns a final wave before he reluctantly departs, and Thomas despondently slides further down by the windowsill, sinking his chin on his folded arms. If only they could spend as much time as they wished with each other. The world feels so perfect when they are together and so dull and empty when they are apart. They share so many interests and always have so much to talk about, but even when they are silent the language of love is still in their eyes. Thomas smiles wistfully. He had read the latter phrase in a poetry book Miss Baxter lent to Kate.

He'd stumbled upon A Ladies' Book of Romantic Verse while hunting for his and Paul's latest issue of Comic Cuts that Kate, who claimed she'd never read such nonsense in a thousand years, and totally unaware that he knew she regularly borrowed to read, had borrowed yet again, and he had flicked through its pages of love poems, planning to quote a few lines to tease her about Fred Lacey, the handsome, tousle-haired lamp-lighter because, to Thomas's great amusement, she blushes whenever she sees him.

But instead a certain poem about forbidden love captured his attention. Although it concerned a lady and a gentleman, and their thwarted romance was not due to their being of the same gender, but due to their being from different social classes, it struck Thomas how alike their situation was to their own. How others tried to tell them their love was wrong, how they smiled and waved from afar, how they loved so deeply and so truly. And so, forgetting all about his plans to tease his older sister, he painstakingly copied every word in his very best flowing handwriting with the stub of a pencil he'd found in the workshop, artistically signing his name and an arrowed heart at the end of the page. The poem is still in his pocket, folded neatly, ready to give to Paul, for, like the star-crossed couple, the two boys often exchange tokens of their love to keep under their pillows, in the hope they might dream of the other. Because they, too, love so deeply and so truly.

They had loved from the moment they met.

And it's six months now since the winter's day when Helen Latham and her son first entered his father's shop, shortly after Mrs Latham, deciding they needed a more central and smaller home than their previous, had rented rooms in nearby Newton Street.

XXXXX

She has a family heirloom carriage clock in need of mending, she declares, producing said item, and looking Thomas critically up and down, obviously thinking he is far too young to be the William Nathaniel Barrow, Clockmaker, as stated on the sign above the door, who claims to make, sell and repair all manner of clocks, and further claims Barrow Clockmakers and Sons to have been Established 1785.

Ben runs to inform Dada of a customer, and as Mrs Latham accepts the chair and shop catalogue that Thomas politely proffers. Paul gapes in wide-eyed wonder at the steadfastly ticking timepieces of every shape, size and age, two or three of which have been the property of the Barrow family since the shop opened, and others that have been on display for several years.

"I'm sure I never saw so many clocks!" He says in breathless awe. "Do you know how they all work?"

Thomas puffs with pride. "Ho! It would be a poor show if I didn't! Here, let me show you how well I mind old Millie – that's what I call her, you know, Millie being a grandmother clock and the very oldest here. It would be a fine how-d'ye-do now, if we named every clock we kept, wouldn't it?" he adds, an odd flutter of pleasure stirring in his heart at the other boy's appreciative laughter. It was, indeed, Thomas's daily chore to wind every clock on the premises, and very skilful he is at it too, as he quickly proves to his new friend, dexterously adjusting the intricate dials behind its case.

"Let me try!" Paul pleads, but as he is an inch or so shorter despite being exactly the same age – they learn this much in between snorts of laughter over Paul's inability to reach the top dial - Thomas lays his hand on the other boy's to guide him, his breath tickling Paul's neck and making him giggle, and both almost tumbling over.

"Paul, for Heaven's sake…!" His mother begins in mild exasperation, deciding their childish antics have gone on long enough, and she made as if she would stand to remove him from his companion.

But then The Monster appears, smoothing back his rumpled hair and hastily fastening his waistcoat, for it is Mr Barrow's custom and personal treat on Friday afternoons to leave his sons to mind the shop while he takes a late, and often liquid, lunch followed by a short nap.

"Good afternoon, Madam, I am so…"

Then he espies the two boys, both laughing heartily, holding on to each other lest they fall, scuffling in an exaggerated semi-dance as if they hope to. In three short strides he reaches them and drags Thomas back by his collar to shake him like a rag doll, his eyes bulging, his face red with rage, a growl rumbling in his throat, so great is his anger.

Then, recollecting there are others present, William Barrow abruptly lets go of his son and seeks to backtrack, for both Mrs Latham and Paul are staring at him in stunned silence.

Paul's mouth forms a round O of astonishment while Mrs Latham, too, is taken aback by the ferocity of the shaking. They are a handful of years into a brand new century, and there is a slowly growing opinion gathering pace that in these more modern times children should be treated more kindly than they have been in previous generations. But many others say spare the road and spoil the child, and it is not her place to interfere in how a man raises his family, so she uncomfortably looks away.

Thomas knows the reprieve is only temporary and he's for it, even without Ben's satisfied smirk to remind him. He knows this as surely as he knows the sun rises in the morning and the moon shines by night. But he gives no indication of anxiety. His mask of indifference has always been both his defence and his downfall, and often he will set sail on stormy waters without captain or compass.

As he does now.

Into the heavy silence, emphasised by the loudly ticking clocks, the mechanical cuckoo suddenly swings out from the ornate Swiss clock to proclaim the hour.

And Thomas can't help himself. He sniggers. Catching his eye, Paul joins in soon afterwards, until their laughter rings merrily around the shop once more. Mrs Latham smiles and the portly clockmaker returns the smile.

"Boys will be boys!" William Barrow remarks pleasantly to the young widow, with a sigh and shake of his grey-peppered head in the manner of a doting father, and his clenched fist hidden.

XXXXX

Dear Lord, that night Thomas received the beating to end all beatings. Kate wasn't home until late, having spent the afternoon and evening with Miss Baxter, who is apparently a fine needlewoman, helping her sew sequins on a ballgown for a wealthy lady. She jumped in shock when she cut through the yard, where small snowflakes fluttered like angel feathers in the chill wind of winter, and in the light of the gas-lamp saw the silhouette of her brother, bloodied, bruised and only half alive, huddled in the outside lavatory.