The child no longer came home at lunch-time. She took sandwiches and ate them at the school. This was an extra task for Rachaela, the making of sandwiches for the child. Sometimes Emma had given Ruth breakfast too, but breakfast was fairly easy, cornflakes or toast. The evening tea was more irksome. The child required and was used to cooked food. She would let herself into the flat and be waiting for Rachaela behind her screen. She would never speak first.

‘Hallo, Ruth.’

‘Hallo, Mummy.’

Rachaela hated cooking Ruth’s teas. Usually they were not things she herself wanted and so two meals had to be arranged. Rachaela tried to give Ruth what she had had with Emma, things she liked or which would be good for her: sausages and chips, chicken and broccoli, real carrots, grilled fish with cheese and baked beans.

Ruth was used to a dessert too, and Rachaela bought her fruit pies and ice cream, but Emma had made plum tarts and custards, crumbles and baked apples.

Rachaela stocked a large blue bowl with apples, oranges, pears and bananas for the child to eat, as Emma had done.

There had to be orange juice, Lucozade and Pepsi in the fridge.

The fridge was crowded. It was costly, feeding the child.

Luckily the washing machine coped as adequately with Ruth’s clothes as it had been doing for the past six years. Emma had ironed Ruth’s blouses. Rachaela bought new ones which did not need ironing.

After the evening meal, Ruth would retire to her area. She would do her slight homework if she had been given any, or paint wild garish pictures, forests of lions and castles on fire, duels in deserts, ships in tempests. Her imagination was obviously being fed by the school and by the books. Twice a week she went to the library, usually on her own.

She caused, apart from the expensive, awkward food and the constant renewal of clothing, very little trouble.

She slept noiselessly. In the night it was difficult to know that she was there, but for the wall of the screen.

Emma’s flat stood empty for six months before anyone else moved in.

They were unfortunate arrivals: two young men who played loud pop music during the evening and sometimes had noisy rows—including the landing in their sphere of operations.

Ruth did not react to this alien influx. She had never cried over Emma.

At first, Emma’s notes, on brightly coloured paper, had come on every ninth or tenth day. Ruth would retire behind her screen to read them and stored them in one of her drawers. She never made any comment on the notes, seemed neither upset nor glad to receive them. After a couple of months, the notes dwindled. Neither had Ruth ever answered them.