Well, I’ve had enough of male charm to last a lifetime, she thought sniffily, going into her room. But she did have to remind herself that if Sybil hadn’t been so open-minded about her lodgers, she wouldn’t be here, either.

By the time she came in from work the next day they had moved in. Creeping upstairs, she could hear muffled voices and the sound of something being scraped across the floorboards. Katie rolled her eyes. It seemed too soon, their arrival. She hadn’t had time to get used to it yet. Archie kept letting out little woofs downstairs as well, not sure about all these strange new noises.

‘Sybil’s gone and rented out the middle room to a couple of Poles – soldiers,’ she complained to Maudie, interested to test her reaction.

‘Really?’ Maudie was jiggling her third child, a little blonde girl called Elizabeth, now a year old, on her hip. ‘Well, that’ll be interesting. John says the Poles were marvellous in the forces, the ones he came across.’

Sybil had evidently explained to them about the communal eating arrangements and, as soon as the mellow sound of the gong rang out at six-fifteen, there was an almost instant thudding of feet down the stairs.

They must still be wearing army boots, by the sound of them, Katie thought. What a racket!

She had decided that Michael should eat with them tonight, instead of having his tea earlier. Somehow having him beside her made her feel less of the shyness that suddenly came over her, in the face of these foreign newcomers.

Mr Jenkins followed her down.

‘Have you met them?’ he mumbled to her in the hall. He seemed ill at ease.

Katie had a sudden feeling that the men they were about to meet were likely to be altogether more full-blooded and vigorous than Mr Jenkins. However, he did seem to be walking out with someone at last – a girl called Dolly, whom they hadn’t yet met.

‘No, not yet.’ His shifty nervousness made her feel impatience of her own. ‘But now’s our chance.’

In the dining room Katie found two men standing rather formally to one side of the table. Her first impression was of the difference in their sizes, one very tall and lean, with prominent cheekbones, the other short and stocky, looking as if he was made of pure muscle. Both had hair of varying shades of brown – the taller one’s a slightly lighter shade than his more ursine companion, whose hair was a thick brush covering his head, and his eyebrows equally bushy. She could not have begun to guess their ages.

‘Ah,’ Sybil said, limping to the table with a pot of something that smelt discouragingly fishy.

The tall Pole immediately held out his arms saying, ‘Please – I help.’ As his face caught the light, Katie saw that he had vivid, ice-blue eyes.

‘No, it’s all right – I’m there now.’ She put the pot on the table with a grunt and laid the towel she had used to carry it over the back of a chair. ‘Here we are. Now you can all be introduced.’ She turned to Katie and Geoff Jenkins. ‘These are our new lodgers. This is’ – she indicated the taller one – ‘Marek. I don’t think we’ll go into surnames for the present.’ Marek gave a faint smile and a rather military nod of the head. Katie thought he looked rather forbidding, and that beneath his formal manners there was a sadness about him. ‘And this’ – indicating his shorter friend – ‘is Piotr. Is that right?’