I knew I should explain why I was there, but just for the moment I didn’t have the energy. From what I could see, she didn’t seem curious. She sat there, working her way through the scones and smiling at me. I can’t tell you how comfortable I felt—comfortable and sleepy. It seemed I had been driving for centuries.

‘Ready for those flapjacks?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘Yep, sirree.’

As she got to her feet I indicated the football stickers, and the Star Wars poster above them. Two of its corners had come unstuck, and curled from the wall.

‘Your son’s?’ I asked.

She giggled. ‘Oh no. I’m footloose and fancy free.’ She brushed crumbs off her lap. ‘They’re Edward’s.’

I paused. Then I said: ‘Edward?’

‘A boy who lived here.’ She went to the door. ‘This was his room.’

Fifteen

Fifteen

All that Saturday afternoon I lay in my son’s bed, drifting in and out of sleep. When I opened my eyes, there were his blurred Liverpool stickers. I vaguely chastised him for not supporting his local boys, but hours later, when I resurfaced, I realized that in those days he was too young to know he lived near the Arsenal ground. Each time that I’d met him—well, almost met him—he was growing older. With Mrs Selwyn he’d had a nap; four years later he had romped with a dog and broken a greenhouse. I was close to him now—so close that I buried my face in his pillow.

I’d had a little bedroom too, like this. Far away, I heard the sound of a Hoover. It echoed down the years. Someone was busy, putting everything to rights. I stayed tucked up, nothing on my mind. I metaphorically sucked my thumb. Hilda was humming in the kitchen; I smelt baking.

When it grew dark she came in and drew the curtains, keeping us safe.

‘One-day flu,’ she said. ‘That’s what it is. Lots of girls at work’ve had it.’

Wasn’t that comforting! And I thought I had been dying. She reminded me of an aunt of mine, who had called the war ‘a silly bother’. Everything was going to be all right.

‘It makes a change, to shop for two,’ she said. ‘I’ve bought us a gorgeous piece of lamb for supper, and made a crumble, and you’re not to get out of that bed.’

‘Let me,’ I whined. ‘Go on.’

‘All right. You can come into the lounge, as long as you stay wrapped up. Now, about these clothes.’ She lifted up my trousers. ‘Polyester mix, I can run them through the machine. Number 4. Strip off.’ She put her hands over her eyes and chortled: ‘Promise I won’t peek.’