Once they’d had a bit of supper she settled down by the fire and, as usual, hid her nose in a book: Gone With the Wind. She had read it before and it was an old favourite. Her mother had started off some knitting with a few balls of pretty cherry-coloured wool that Katie had managed to get hold of as a Christmas present. Vera had made her a little blouse. The room was cosy with the blackout curtains drawn, the fire well stoked and the lamps on. For a time they listened to the wireless.

After a while Vera reached across and clicked it off, without saying anything, and went back to her knitting. A horrible tension grew in the room.

Katie got up and made them each a cup of tea, then sat down, tucking her feet under her, and tried to lose herself in Scarlett and Rhett, enjoying the feel of the heavy book in her hands, the smell of yellowed paper, but it was no good. Unable to bear her mother’s mood any longer, she dared to break into the silence.

‘Mother?’

Vera looked across at her with a strange, almost hostile look, and Katie nearly lost her courage. But she forced herself on.

Gently, as if talking to a child, she said, ‘You’ve never really told me much about Daddy . . . You see, I can’t really remember anything. And I’d like to know a bit more, if you don’t mind.’

Vera flinched visibly, but as Katie went on speaking her face changed and a soft smile appeared on her lips. When she spoke it was in the sing-song tone that she sometimes put on when talking about the past.

‘You know, Katie, it’s strange that you should bring that up now, because every day you look more like him. Oh! He was a handsome man – and from a good family, never think otherwise. People can be so rude about the Irish, but he was no navvy, your father. You know he was an engineer. When I met him he was just coming to the end of his apprenticeship at the Wolseley works, all set for a really top working life.’

‘The first thing I noticed about him when we met was how tall he was, and his eyes – those deep-blue eyes that seemed only for me, twinkling with laughter. I’d never met anyone like him. Of course my own family were very prim and were not keen on the Irish, and Catholics of course – oh!’ She made a gesture which implied that, for her parents and their ilk, this was beyond anything. ‘He completely changed my mind about all that. He was so intelligent – like your Uncle Patrick was, of course – and so lively. We laughed all evening, and by the end I knew I’d fallen in love with him and he with me. It was as sudden and magical as that. Oh, I hope you have that feeling one day, Katie, that you meet a man who you can look up to, who just sweeps you away! My Michael, I used to call him . . .’