They each take an end and manage to shunt the table across the room. It’s almost in position when Georgia lets go unexpectedly, just at the moment Tess is giving it a last heave. Without Georgia to steady it, the corner of the table jabs sharply into the wall and as though in slow motion, the plaster crumbles.

There is half a minute of stunned silence.

‘Oh hell! I’ll cover the repair as soon as I get paid.’ Tess drags the table back into the room a little to assess the damage. A chunk of plaster falls to the floor, and a vertical crack appears from lino to mantelpiece. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Georgia seems unperturbed. ‘Keith was a great decorator but he wasn’t an expert in house building. This looks like a sheet of hardboard with a skim coat of plaster on top. I’m not sure it’s going to be repairable.’

‘What’s behind it?’

‘The beast. Otherwise known as the old kitchen range.’ Georgia sits down wearily on the only chair left in the room. ‘It would have been 1960, perhaps? 1961. Yes, it was 1961. We filled in the census at that very table and I remember there being a debate about whether the scullery counted as a room.’

‘And did it?’

‘Apparently not. Annie was quite indignant about that.’

‘My dad always filled it in, not my mum.’

‘Not here. Annie’s stepmother was a census protester in 1911, and ever since then it’s always been the women who do it in this house. The enumerators never knew anyway.’ She looks at her grimy hands and shrugs before running them through her already dirty hair. ‘We’re going to have to sort this mess out.’ She takes her phone out of her pocket and taps at the screen with the speed of a teenager. ‘Right. I’ve left another message for Stan. Hopefully he’ll reply soon, and if he doesn’t, we’ll just have to manage without him.’

Tess tries to take stock of the situation. ‘If the pipes to that sink can be blocked off, I think things would be OK for a bit. The scullery sink has its own supply. This one in the kitchen must have been a later addition?’

‘Keith put it in when he built the wall in front of the range. It was done so we could use the sink in here after the door to the scullery was locked at night. He had the wiring done at the same time, so we had a new electric cooker as well. All mod cons in the 1960s, you know.’

‘What would you like me to do? I mean, I can tell you what I think needs to be done but it’s your house and I’m happy to just be the labourer.’