When it comes to it, when he’s so close they could nudge elbows, William can’t bring himself to look at her. He feels the brightness of her smile on him, registers the scarlet fabric of a new dress and smells her L’Air du Temps but can only stare straight ahead. Charles, he notices, turns his head the slightest fraction to the right to meet his mother’s eye, and smiles lightly, briefly. Before he has even got to the choir stalls, William is filled with regret and guilt for not having done the same.

‘So, Master Lavery, tell me everything!’

William is relieved that none of the other probationers has chosen the Copper Kettle on King’s Parade for their lunch. He wonders where they have gone. This is the only place he knows about. Martin comes here with his family. On his china plate lies ham, egg and chips; huge, luxurious and shockingly greasy.

There’s a hint of lipstick on his mother’s front tooth, and where once he would have reached over and rubbed it off, he points at his own teeth and rubs. Instantly she lifts her napkin to her mouth.

Having spent the last six weeks adjusting to the shock of her leaving him at the school, simply walking away and not being there, he now finds it just as strange to be sitting opposite her, with the comfort and the responsibility of being the centre of someone’s world again.

‘So?’ She grins. ‘I’m waiting.’

How does he even begin?

‘Martin, who did the solo this morning, is my friend. He’s my age, been here three years. I like Phillip. I like Mr Atkinson – he gave me this.’ He pulls the exeat from his pocket and dangles it over his mother’s meal. ‘I couldn’t have come out with you if he hadn’t given me this.’

‘I’d have clouted him round the head with my handbag if he hadn’t! What about the singing?’ Her eyebrows arch in expectation. William notices they are softly coloured in.

‘The chapel makes us sound amazing.’

‘And?’ It’s the excited look she has when he’s about to open a present from her. A waitress squeezes past their table, holding a tray level with her plump face.

‘Every morning, I have to line up by the bath,’ he says, with a sudden desire to shock her, ‘put my hands on the bottom of it and get cold water poured over my back.’

It works. Her brow collapses. ‘What on earth do they do that for?’

‘Make men of us.’ He wants to sound nonchalant.

‘When you say cold, do you mean cold, or just not very warm?’ The worry on her face for some reason pleases him.

‘Ice cold,’ he says.

She spins her ring on her slender finger and frowns.