‘Yes,’ Katie chuckled. ‘Sometimes it’s funny, when he gets things wrong. He’s ever so good with Michael. I think . . .’ She frowned, as if trying to work something out. ‘I don’t know why we get on really.’ There was something in each of them, of loss and need and a shared sense of humour. Not to mention physical attraction. ‘It’s just something you can’t really put into words, isn’t it? Just something right.’

‘I s’pose it is,’ Em said.

Katie looked closely at her and held out her cup for the top-up that Em was offering.

‘Quite enough of my life. Tell me about you?’

‘Oh, not much to tell.’ Being unusually blunt after Katie’s honesty, she said, ‘Married. Living with his mom and dad, for better or worse. One son: can’t seem to have any more.’

Tears came again, quite unexpectedly, and she ducked her head down.

‘Oh dear – oh, Em, you’re really upset, aren’t you?’ Katie’s kind voice brought out all Em’s bottled-up feelings.

‘I know I should be grateful for having one son,’ she said through her tears. ‘But Norm wasn’t here to see him grow up, either, and they’ve never been all that close. I don’t want many – just one more, that Norm can get to know from the beginning. I think it would bring us closer, too. Not that it’s bad. We’re OK.’ Now she felt she’d said too much, or at least that it had come out clumsily and given the wrong impression. She and Norm were OK – of course they were!

‘Well, maybe it’ll happen,’ Katie said.

‘Yes.’ What else was there to say? ‘But I’m trying to get used to the idea that it won’t – not after all this time.’

‘Is Molly Fox married?’ Katie asked.

‘Molly? Oh no. Well – not so far as I know. You never quite know with Molly. I haven’t heard from her as much as during the war – we used to write quite regularly then. But now she seems to be doing jobs here and there. In holiday camps in the summer: Butlin’s and that. But she doesn’t come up here. I don’t think she wants to tangle with that mother of hers.’

‘Oh yes, I remember. She used to frighten me to death!’

‘Old Iris? Yes – she gave me a few frights, I can tell you. She’s still about here somewhere. Looks the same, only worse.’

‘Was she . . .’ Katie hesitated. ‘Was she cruel to Molly? All I remember is how much Molly smelt: that stink always hanging round her. And that yard up that horrible slimy entry – it gave me the creeps. But I never really knew much about her.’

‘Oh, Iris was cruel all right. She’s vile – the only word for her. I worry about Molly; I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. I just hope one day she’ll write again, or turn up. She’s got no family except her mother, and she doesn’t want anything to do with her.’