‘Never.’ Georgia stops spinning the ring and laces her fingers together, elbows on the table, like a child saying grace before dinner. ‘When I was a child, there was a meeting here, with the neighbours. Something about the dustbins in the street not being collected regularly. They were going to write a joint letter to Edinburgh Corporation. It was after my bedtime and I was sitting about halfway up the stairs, just high enough that I wouldn’t be seen. I think I was about seven or eight and I wanted to know what it was they were talking about.’ She unlaces her fingers and spreads them out on the table, stretching her handspan as far as possible. ‘I heard one of the women ask Annie if I wouldn’t be better off at a boarding school. I have no idea who asked the question, but I heard her reply quite loudly that under no circumstances was any child of hers going to a boarding school. I remember it particularly because I knew that I wasn’t her child. When you are young, and your parents are dead, and everyone else lives with a mummy and a daddy, or so it felt to me at the time, that was such a comforting thing to hear. It was as if she was claiming me.’ Georgia paused. ‘There was apparently some talk of me going to live with a relative in Canada when I was very young, but it never came to anything because the Atlantic was a dangerous place during the Second World War, so I stayed here in Edinburgh and that was that. Years later she told me that she would never have sent me to people I didn’t know halfway across the world. I can hear her saying it now. She was so definite about it all. I think whoever the mysterious relative was must have died because it was never mentioned again.’

‘Would you like me to read the other letter?’

‘Please. We may as well finish dealing with this box today.’

The envelope is made from thick blue paper, just like the sheet of paper inside it. This one is folded in two, so it looks like the pages of a book, and then in two again. Tess peers at the spidery handwriting which has many underlinings and capital letters.

August 1911

Barry, South Wales

Ursula, My Bonnie Darling,

I returned here last night and found your letter waiting for me. I sent postcards to Ann and Finlay on Tuesday and another one to you from Ilfracombe on Wednesday, which I trust that you received all right.

I know that I am not always easy to live with, but believe me I will always return your love and caresses forty fold or more, if you will accept them, and we will not contemplate any other form which cannot be repaid by me in that way. What do you say, eh? Ma Cherie!