‘Brillo! It’s lovely up there at this time of year. Will you be doing some scrub-bashing? Such fun. How many are in the class? Will Lenny be in your group?’

‘Yes.’ Lizzie takes a big sip of her coffee and says, ‘I used to be a teacher. Before.’ Tess’s ears prick up, like Maud’s do when she hears the word ‘ham’. She’s a bit deaf, though, so they also prick up when she hears ‘jam’, ‘Pam’ (a frequent visitor to the shelter, who donates tins and is petrified of dogs), and ‘flan’, which Frankie makes and no one likes, not even Maud.

‘Primary?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you miss it?’

‘Painfully.’ She misses her old job almost as much as she misses the person she used to be when she was doing it. She could say more. Could talk about the smell of the store cupboard, yellowing pages, crisp-lined notebooks. Sharpened pencils and the look on kids’ faces when she’d sing ‘The Periodic Table Song’ to them and they’d try to keep up but never quite manage it. Lizzie made kids want to prove her wrong. ‘Surely you can’t know this,’ she’d say, and arms would shoot up like arrows. Lizzie used to stretch imaginations; now she cowers in corners. Her mum always told her she was tireless, that she expected too much: ‘You want to crack the world like an egg, tip it upside down. Always wanting to know why, why, why. Here’s a question for you, my girl. Why can’t you just let things be?’

Now Lizzie has been cracked and tipped, poured out like sand, and for the first time, she wishes she’d listened to her mother.

George

(Currying favours)

GEORGE HAS MENDED BETTY’S table and radiator, and hung up her clock. He’s fixed some trellis and repaired an old stool he found in the shed so she can sit as she cuts up her vegetables. ‘Or you could just eat less, then your feet wouldn’t swell up.’

‘Tut. If I didn’t have to cook for you, Lazy Louie, I wouldn’t get so sore.’

That shuts George up. He won’t bite the hands that feed him. Jobs done, he tells himself. The debt is paid and he can go home, but instead he fixes a loose window and puts new felt on her summerhouse roof while Betty cooks and sings along to the radio. George has his own with him, turned up loud to block out Radio 2.

He used to love making Ellen furniture. The way her eyes would sparkle at him. He seemed to grow an inch taller each time she said, ‘Did you make this all by yourself?’ and another inch on top when she said, ‘Did you copy it from a book?’