Snowy laughed. ‘So could you – show off dresses and suits, I mean – and you’ve got brains as well,’ he pointed out. ‘What made you have your hair cut short, when everyone else is wearing it long?’

Tess giggled. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever read Anne of Green Gables,’ she said. ‘It’s a grand story. I read it for the first time before I was evacuated, and because it was my favourite book I took it down to Norfolk with me. It’s all about this girl, Anne, who’s an orphan and goes to live on a farm run by an elderly couple who had asked for a boy and were very disappointed to get a girl. But Anne is a real little devil, red-haired and freckly, and she decides to dye her hair black. Only something goes wrong and her hair comes out green. So she has to have her head shaved and it regrows a sort of reddy-gold colour and is like a curly cap on her head. So when the hairdresser asked me how I wanted my hair done I said short and crisp, hoping that mine might curl too, only as you can see it didn’t work. But I like it and I don’t care if it’s not fashionable. It’s easy to keep tidy and provided I have a trim every four or five weeks it’s no trouble at all. Gran likes it too,’ she added defiantly.

‘So do I,’ Snowy said, just as they reached the milliner’s shop and the green-painted door which led to Gran’s apartment. ‘Look, are you sure it’ll be all right for me to come up? Only if you’d rather I visited you another day, when you’ve had a chance to warn your gran . . .’

‘Nonsense; we reached an agreement and I know Gran wouldn’t want me to break my word,’ Tess said. ‘Besides, she’s at work. But she’ll have left me a snack and knowing Gran there’ll be plenty for two, so you’re very welcome to come up. You can take a look round the flat and if you’re very good you can have a read of my copy of Anne of Green Gables, though I dare say it’ll seem a bit babyish for someone who’s recently entered her teens.’

It was not far from Deering’s to the flat and Gran set off up Heyworth Street aware of a tingle of excitement. Tess was coming home – in fact she should be home by now – and Gran couldn’t wait to hear from her own lips how her holiday had gone. She had written home several times but hadn’t said much about how she was enjoying herself, if indeed she was. She had explained that the weather had made everything difficult, but hadn’t gone into detail, saying that she would tell Gran all about it upon her return home. Gran guessed that the letters were written not in the privacy of her own room but in the kitchen, on the long wooden table she had described, with Jonty sitting opposite and Mr and Mrs Bell glancing curiously at their guest’s writing paper as she kept Gran abreast of events.