They were having their own Coronation tea. The big event had been on Tuesday – for which, like so many other householders, Sybil had taken the step of investing in a first-ever television set.

‘It’ll be nice for the children,’ she said, but Katie could see that Sybil was going to enjoy television as well.

They all crowded round for the eleven o’clock service in Westminster Abbey. How exciting it had been to see the young Queen in all her finery! And there had been a little party in the street, but the weather was poor. Sybil had already decided she’d like a get-together, and she and Katie agreed that the following Saturday would be a good opportunity.

‘We’ll just make it tea,’ Sybil said. ‘There’ll be quite a few children, and we can fill everyone up with jelly and cake!’

When the food was ready, Katie went to the back door. Everything was ready: the tables arranged optimistically out there, the cloths pinned at the corners, and all the chairs they could find, plus some borrowed from the Arbuckles. Further down she could see Marek, bent over, holding the hand of their little daughter, Dorothy, who was nearly eighteen months old. Nearby her half-brother Michael, now nine, and her brother Tomas, four, were both clinging to a rope tied from the branch of the tree and trying to swing on it at once.

‘Marek!’ she called, going out towards him. He turned, cupping a hand round his ear.

‘I’m just going up to get changed – they’ll all be here soon. I’ll take Do-do and clean her up too. I suppose she’s been trying to keep up with those two!’

‘It’s hard to stop her,’ Marek laughed. ‘When she wants to do something, she is like a tank!’

Katie laughed, reached up and kissed him, happy to see the contentment in his face. Marek was a complicated man, and sometimes subject to dark moods. She recognized that these could be especially bad on high days and holidays – Christmas and Easter, when he seemed often perversely gloomy. But in the main she had watched him blossom in their love for one another, in the gradual building of a family. And he had helped her blossom, too.

‘Come on, Dorota,’ she said. ‘Time to put on your pretty dress.’

‘No-o-o-o!’ Dorothy, a wonderfully healthy-looking child with dark, curly hair like Michael and brown eyes, clung to Marek’s hand, unimpressed at being dragged away.

Katie had to pick her up, and she wriggled, screaming in her arms, all the way to the house.

‘Tomas!’ Katie called to him. ‘I want to change your shirt.’

Tomas pretended he had heard nothing at all and carried on playing. Of their children, he was the one who closely resembled Marek, a pale, slender boy with a wide, face with strong cheekbones and big blue eyes.

‘I’ll be back for you,’ Katie muttered.