For a moment, they stand still in the scented air. Then Aaron turns to Rose. His lopsided face, pulled tight with worry, eases into a wide smile. His hair sticks up in loose, greasy spikes. His skin is clouded with grime. But he is young. When he smiles, he is young.

Rose smiles back.

‘Can we eat?’ he says.

The kitchen is behind them. There are rows and rows of cupboards. She cautiously opens one. Bowls. Two stacks of ten each. She takes one out. It seems whiter than a normal bowl. She puts it back.

Then mugs. Fifteen mugs, all identical, all upside down. Cups too, with saucers. Then glasses, dozens of them. Different shapes, stacked in different areas. Big wide-bottomed goblets. Narrow flutes. Artisan water glasses. Then big bowls. Serving bowls. Blue, white, terracotta, with seagulls flying across them or fish swimming at the bottom. Plates, stacked twenty high, in three different sizes.

Then jam. Nine different half-opened jars of jam.

She pulls out strawberry, hands it to Aaron. She takes blackberry. He dips a finger in, hooks a strawberry, eats. She does the same then holds the jam in one hand as she opens drawers, finds a spoon. She gives him one and he switches to that, spooning the jam into his mouth.

The sweetness fills her.

She moves on. The lower cupboards have pans in. She checks them. More pans. Trays. Food mixers. Tea and coffee.

There is a door at the back of the kitchen. She opens it. Behind her Aaron is still spooning jam. A light clicks on.

From floor to ceiling are shelves of food.

Cans, packets, bottles. Wine, beer, oil. Boxes of cereal, six-packs of drinks cans.

Biscuits.

She steps into the cupboard. She looks back. Aaron has jam on his face, in the corners of his mouth. He looks like a toddler.

Let this work, she thinks to herself. Let us stay here, alone. Let us eat.

The sweetness of the jam has opened a deep, aching hole that cramps inside her. She hasn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. She hasn’t felt like this for years. She might faint, crumple onto the floor and disappear.

That Monday morning, seven years before, she had walked to school slowly. She placed her feet gently, carefully, in her bright red shoes, the ones her mother had stolen for her. She had already dropped Aaron at primary. In their room at the hostel, when they left that morning, her mother had still not returned. She had been gone since Friday night. Rose had bought a pack of biscuits on the way home from school on Friday afternoon. They finished them for breakfast on Sunday.

When their mother wasn’t there, Aaron refused to leave the room. He was scared of the hallway, and the people in the hallway. Rose couldn’t leave him either. If she did he screamed. So they peed in a bucket and poured it out of the window when the coast was clear. If there was a pigeon, they tried to hit it. Once, they got a cat.