She feels sick. She’s really not used to drinking. This isn’t like her, but then the war has made them all reckless. She needs some fresh air.

It’s dark outside. No moon, and the blackout keeps the night pristine. She breathes deeply, but the fresh air only makes her head spin faster. She hears someone say her name and then she’s falling. Bang. Suddenly the night is full of bright lights and crackling noise.

She feels something tug at her clothing and knows that she should say something. This is wrong, but she can’t move. She wants to lie here and wait for the world to stop turning. There’s a great weight on top of her now. She tries to speak but there’s something over her mouth, a hard woven fabric. The cuff of a greatcoat. Then comes the sharp pain between her legs, and the dirt and grit beneath her head dig into her scalp. The pain only lasts a few minutes and then the weight is gone again.

She lies there drifting, afloat in the night.

“Lily. Lillian? Lillian!”

Someone slaps her hard in the face. Edna.

Lily says, “I thought you’d gone,” and is surprised the words come out all right.

“I went to the lavatory. Oh, Lord, Lillian! We need to get you home.”

“No,” she shouts. Home is Auntie Vi’s. “No, I can’t go there!”

“All right, all right,” Edna says. “You can come back to mine. We’ll get you all cleaned up.”

Lily starts to cry. “Oh,” she says. “Oh.” There really isn’t anything else to say. She doesn’t even know which one it was. Which uniform would she have preferred?

“Don’t think about it,” says Edna. “Not now . . .”

After all, you have a guest . . . Edna is back, swinging on the sun lounger, watching Oscar clean up her mess. He must sense them both watching him because he suddenly looks up.

“Aunt Lil?”

“The police were here earlier,” she says.

He stands up and comes to join her outside. “No,” he says, “that was yesterday. I was here with you, remember?” He’s looking at her now, as though he’s concerned about something. “Are you all right, Lily?” He strips off his Marigolds and crouches next to her.

“They asked about your father.” She no longer feels the need to protect him. “They think it’s him they’ve found, in the cellar.”

“Yes,” he says. “It is. They confirmed it.”

“He was a lovely young man,” she says, “that policeman. Very polite.”

“They’ve found another body, too,” he says. “A woman.”

They’ve never talked like this before. So honestly. Edna would never have allowed it. But now Edna just watches, smiling her ghastly toothy smile.

“Awful,” says Lily.

“Do you know who it is? The other body?”

“What’s that?”