‘A week ago,’ Katie confessed.

‘Gracious heavens!’ Maudie looked at her, aghast. ‘You must be all in – here, have a chair. And I’ll make tea: you must have biscuits! I’ll run and turn up the gas! Course, I used to have a daily, but she’s gone off to work in a factory – more money. And quite right of course, naturally. We must all do our bit . . .’

Katie was more than grateful to sit down. She felt shaky, and the journey had taken it out of her.

‘And you’re having to look for a new berth so soon after?’ Maudie bustled back in. ‘You poor, poor thing! And where’s your husband, may I ask?’

Katie had told so many of these kinds of lies that they came easily now. ‘Oh, he’s out east somewhere. I haven’t heard from him in a little while now. I don’t know if he even knows about Michael yet – probably not. I can’t help worrying.’

‘Well, of course.’ Maudie said. ‘I know with my John – I mean he’s very good, and he writes whenever he gets the chance, but it’s so erratic, and of course when they’re at sea . . . !’ She gazed down at Michael again. ‘What a heavenly baby – oh, the kettle!’ She dashed back into the kitchen.

By the end of this ‘interview’ Katie had hardly had to say anything, but she knew a great deal about Maudie and John Grant, and about little Jenny’s schooling, which was a homespun business these days, taking place in the house of a Mrs Grey where sometimes Maudie went to help, and about Peter’s tendency to sleepwalk. And Maudie had said, of course, that Katie could move in if she could stand the chaos, and that they would muddle along together.

And they had done, for more than two years. Katie was more grateful to Maudie than she could put into words. Until Michael was two months old she had stayed home with him, paying Maudie for her board out of Simon’s money. The girls pooled their rations. Katie found a new job as a typist then, not too far away, in Hockley, and paid Maudie to look after Michael. She had to start giving him formula from a bottle in the daytime, and Katie was always longing to get home after a long day slogging at the typewriter, her breasts still tingling and seeping with milk, to feed him herself.

It was hard at first, uncomfortable, and she hated being away from Michael. She was envious of the time Maudie spent with him, pushing him up to the shops on the Soho Road in Jenny’s and Peter’s old perambulator, and sitting with him in the afternoon. But Maudie was so kind-hearted and never at all possessive about Michael, because her hands were already quite full enough with her own children. And soon, since Katie always came home to find him safe and well cared for, she trusted Maudie with him completely.