‘It’s not that I’m obstinate; in a way I’d like to take the exam, and the Higher too, but I’d like to work and earn money as well,’ Tess explained. ‘If I could do both that would be grand, but I can’t see someone paying me not to work for them, can you?’

Snowy laughed. Apart from murmuring how do you do, he had said nothing, embarrassed to be found making himself at home in the flat when its owner was not present, but now he smiled. ‘If you keep on coming top of the class you may yet end up going in for further education, like me,’ he said. ‘But right now I’d best be off. You’ll have a lot you want to discuss, and I’ll only be in the way.’

Gran assured him he was wrong, and said she would whip up some Welsh cakes to go with the tea they were about to drink, but Snowy still shook his head. ‘Another time,’ he said. ‘I must be going home or my mother will wonder what’s kept me.’ He smiled at the two women and Tess accompanied him downstairs, returning almost at once to give Gran another hug.

‘You don’t know how marvellous it is to be home,’ she told the older woman. ‘Our kitchen is only small, but when there are only two of you in the family what do you need with a huge kitchen? And it’ll be nice to go to bed tonight with my own things around me: my books, my clothes, my raggedy doll and the pictures I cut out of old geographic magazines. And right next door I’ll have you, my very own gran.’

Her smile was so wide and delighted that any thought of revealing the secret of her friendship with Albert disappeared from Gran’s mind. Bide your time and the right moment will come, she told herself. Instead, she went over to the stove and prodded the potatoes; yes, they were cooked right through. She should start the chops now. But Tess was still chattering. ‘And it will be lovely to talk at mealtimes again,’ she said contentedly. ‘The Bells don’t, you know – talk at meals, I mean. I don’t believe they think it’s rude, they just want to finish as quickly as possible so they can get back to work.’ She twinkled at Gran. ‘But you and I can tell each other what we’ve been doing over the past three weeks,’ she said contentedly. ‘I’ve got masses and masses of news. Norfolk’s had really weird weather and life’s been truly hard for farmers.’

The story lost nothing in the telling, and long before the chops were cooked Gran knew all about the hail which was the size of tennis balls, the gale which had carried off the Morris’s hood and the twister which had wrecked a whole field of wheat. Naturally, she oohed and aahed in all the appropriate places, expressing her sympathy for the Bells and laughing heartily when Tess related the story of Crippen’s escape and recapture.