From the back door she saw that the two boys were happy in the yard. Robbie was instructing Michael quite pompously in the arts of football. Em smiled and went back in.

‘They’re happy as Larry,’ she said. ‘Now then, will you tell me about your life – what’s happened to you?’

Katie talked then, for a long time, about how things had been at home with her mother and uncle. Em watched her as she talked, sometimes looking at Em, sometimes away at the window. Em was fascinated, seeing the way her mouth moved as she talked, her fingers – she remembered her hands, her wide nails – the slant of her shoulders. It seemed so strange that Katie should seem so closely familiar after all this time.

‘Michael’s father has never once seen him,’ she went on. Her voice was dispassionate. ‘I won’t say who he is – it doesn’t really matter now. When we met, I think I was just amazed that anyone would be interested in me, like that. I hadn’t a clue about men, and I didn’t have a very high opinion of myself. He seemed very keen, and I just thought that because he said he was keen on me, that I must be on him. We weren’t suited at all really. If we’d married, I think I’d have been very unhappy.’

She looked across and saw the sadness in Em’s eyes.

‘That’s terrible,’ Em said. For all the days of humdrum life, working, bringing up Robbie, Em knew she had loved Norm, that underneath it all she still did. ‘How did you manage? I mean, when he was born?’

‘I went to a friend – her family were very kind. And then I went back to work. You know, shorthand and typing.’

‘That’s what our Vi wants to do,’ Em said, smiling.

‘It’s not a bad job. There’s plenty of work.’

Em was just about to speak again when the back door opened and the boys came roaring in, pink-cheeked and excited.

‘Nanna said there’s cake!’ Robbie cried. His eyes fastened on the Victoria sponge cake. ‘Ooh – can we have some?’

They were soon tucking into slices of the dry cake and a cup of milk.

‘Michael’s getting a bit better at football,’ Robbie reported. ‘But he won’t catch up with me – not yet.’

The two mothers smiled. ‘Well, thank you for giving him a lesson anyway,’ Katie said.

‘Right, you two – go on, Robbie, find your cars and your bits and bobs. You two can settle down here now.’

‘Oh!’ they both cried, and Robbie said, ‘Oh, Mom – we want to go out again!’

It was still light, so Em agreed.

Katie told Em about Maudie, and then about Sybil’s house and finally, with a blush, she talked about Marek.

‘I thought you had roses in your cheeks,’ Em said. Maybe Marek was the one who had made Katie seem so different, she thought. ‘Polish,’ she added. ‘My goodness! Does he speak English?’