‘And I said no. Absolutely not. I’m sure Keith will be able to fix it with a new pane of glass and some putty.’ She paused. ‘The smell of it always reminds me of Finlay. It’s the linseed oil. He used to rub it into his cricket bat.’ Ann pulled herself together. She walked over to the fireplace and looked around at everything they had achieved. ‘This room looks a lot better now, and all our hard work has given me the nudge to get those chimneys swept as soon as possible and think about lighting a fire. Maybe if Keith and Rab have any energy left on their Sundays, they might be able to help us get it wallpapered before Christmas. We might even put a Christmas tree in the window. That will scare the rest of the street.’

‘We could do that.’

‘Since Ursula died, I’ve barely been in here.’ Ann ran her fingers along the mantelpiece. ‘This was her favourite room.’

Isobel allowed a respectful period of silence before pushing on. ‘Unfortunately, if we’re going to be entertaining in the kitchen then it will need a proper clean, and it’s already noon. I haven’t made the sly cake yet, and she will be here at three.’

Ann folded her arms. ‘Nonsense. We have parkin; you made it on Monday, as you do every week, and it will be lovely and chewy. If the sly cake is ready, that’s fine, and if it isn’t then we can just have it for supper instead. The kitchen is clean, you scrubbed it down yesterday. There might be some soot on the range but nothing a damp cloth won’t sort out. We have the perfect excuse to be there, should we even need one, because she won’t be able to miss the broken glass in the window as she walks up the front path. And with the price of coal I expect we aren’t the only household who are lighting fewer fires. I’m sure even the most well-heeled citizens of the city are thinking about how much fuel they use and whether they really need to have a fire lit in every single room on every single day.’

‘You might be right. I spoke to Agnes up the road just last week and she said they’ve cut right back on the coal order. Between you and me, she is rather worried about her position.’

Ann frowned. ‘She won’t be the first, nor the last, sadly. What age is she?’

‘I’m not sure. Older than me; she might be fifty. The family sort of inherited her from their parents.’