‘Uncle Patrick lived there, where that window is, and up there my mother did her sewing in the attic . . .’ She could imagine walking into the house, going up the dark stairs, every tread of them still familiar, Vera, back ramrod straight, sitting at her sewing table. She moved closer to Marek and took his arm, squeezing it. He looked down at her.

‘So – your childhood home.’

‘Thank God it’s now, not then,’ she said passionately. She wanted to get away from it, the memories of the house were oppressive. ‘Come on, we’ll go and have a mooch round. I’ll show you the baths and a few other things, and then we can go back into town.’

It was tiring walking. Katie kept having to hold her hat on, and Michael was beginning to whine in the cold.

‘This is mostly where we went to the shops,’ she said, along Great Lister Street. ‘OK, Mikey – we’ll be getting back on the bus soon. This is where your mom used to do her shopping when she was little.’

A figure caught her eye suddenly, standing by the greengrocer’s shop. Katie squinted, blinking her eyes, which were watering in the wind that was bellying up the awnings of the shops. She didn’t think she knew the woman, who was talking to someone out of sight under the awning, but she seemed familiar: a quite tall, rather splendid figure with a head of thick, metal-grey hair pinned up in a thick pile on her head. Curious, she walked closer, racking her brains to think who it was. She had dark eyebrows and a strong, handsome face. That was it! That lady who lived next to Em, such a kind, energetic person – Mrs Wiggins!

As they moved up close, she saw the woman eye her, though without recognition. She realized that she and Marek made a striking couple walking along the street: she with her dark, pretty looks, and he tall, with his unusual chiselled face and blue eyes. On impulse, Katie said quietly to the woman, ‘Excuse me – sorry to bother you. Are you Mrs Wiggins, by any chance?’

The woman looked curiously at her. ‘Well, I’m not, as it happens, she said; but I used to be. I’m Mrs Alberello now – have been for years. Do I know you, bab?’

‘I used to live in this road,’ Katie said. ‘Years ago—’

‘Katie?’ a voice said.

Ducking her head under the awning, Katie saw the person to whom Dot Alberello had been talking. Standing by a pile of parsnips in her working overall, looking much the same as ever.

‘Em?’

‘Who’s this then?’ Dot said. ‘Your face does look a bit familiar.’

Katie explained where she had lived, that they had moved away. ‘Em and I were pals at school,’ she said.

Em smiled. ‘Yes,’ she agreed softly. ‘Best friends.’

‘How are you, Em?’ Katie asked. She saw forgiveness and welcome in Em’s smile and felt flooded with happiness.