A moment later, looking very grown-up, Michael slid down off the chair.

‘All finished!’ he cried, triumphant.

‘Bravo!’ Marek clapped.

‘Don’t you look grown-up?’ Sybil said. Katie saw that she was thoroughly enjoying all these comings and goings in her house.

Marek had found work at Lucas’s in Great King Street. When Sybil asked him, over one evening meal, what he had done before, in Poland, he listened to the question in his polite, intent way, then shrugged.

‘I was student. When the Germans came in thirty-nine – then Soviets – I was sixteen years. I have no job.’

‘No, of course, how silly of me,’ Sybil said, while Katie realized, to her surprise, that she and Marek were the same age. She had thought him to be older. He seemed older – both of the Poles did.

‘And what about your sister?’

‘She was then twelve years.’

Since the war Lucas had stopped making parts for Beaufighters and Stirling bombers and had returned to the production of parts for cars and peacetime aeroplanes. Marek had a quite menial job in assembly.

‘But surely,’ Sybil said, ‘a bright young man like you could be apprenticed?’

‘Perhaps one day.’ Marek nodded. ‘But not now. Is not allowed.’

‘Should you like that, d’you think?’ Sybil asked. And in a rare moment of probing for facts, ‘What was your father’s occupation?’

‘He was chemist. Not in a factory – I mean . . .’ Marek put down his knife and fork. ‘He was teacher.’ After a moment he added, ‘My mother too.’

‘A chemist?’

‘No.’ A faint smile reached his eyes. ‘She teached small children.’

‘Taught,’ Sybil corrected.

‘Ah yes, taught. Thank you.’

‘Was it she who taught you to play the piano?’ They had heard Marek play, haunting tunes and infectious dances that made Katie want to tap her feet immediately, his long body leaning into the piano, relearning things he had not played for years. Gradually they were coming back to him. It was lovely to listen to, and Sybil was delighted.

‘Er, no – it was a lady, a neighbour. My mother, she played, but only little bit – in the school.’

‘Ah, songs for the children, that sort of thing?’

‘Yes,’ Marek nodded, ‘that sort of thing.’

Further questions about his family seemed to hang in the air, but it didn’t feel right to ask them.

About his sister, though, Marek was more forthcoming and they soon found out more about her. Agnieska’s ship had docked at Southampton at the end of June and she had been taken, with many of the others who had travelled from Mombasa, to Daglingworth Camp, outside Gloucester. Soon after they moved in, Marek had visited the camp to be reunited with her, coming back to report that she had been placed for the moment in the care of a Polish family, and that she had some problems with her health. She would stay in the camp for at least a few months to learn more English and become acclimatized.