There was a parallel there with Liv’s behavior, Silver said. She never ventured outside owing to an unfounded fear of being seen and apprehended, while Andrew, if this was Andrew, who had real grounds for caution, had no choice but to go out if his family wasn’t to starve. I said that wasn’t a parallel but a contrast, and then, because it had only just occurred to me, I asked him if the damage to those houses would cut off our passage along the Torrington Gardens roofs.

He had already thought of it. “There are other roofs,” he said, “there are other ways of reaching them. Don’t worry,” and then we went to sleep.

I’ve given the impression, I know, of being irresponsible and uncaring of my parents’ worries. The fact was that at this time, a week or so after Max had turned me out, I daily expected one of them to arrive at Silver’s and attempt to take me back. Another parallel with Liv’s situation, I suppose, though fear of being caught didn’t stop me going out. By then Beryl knew where I was. I was too proud to ask her not to say anything to Selina, I was sure she and Max must know my whereabouts and have passed this information on to Mum and Dad. As it happened, Beryl hadn’t said a word. She who was such a tremendous gossip about her employers drew a line at what she would have defined as betraying a friend.

“You and me is pals, love,” she said when I spoke to her about this a couple of weeks later. “I keep me mouth shut when it’s them as I’m fond of.”

I was so touched I almost cried. It was then that I persuaded Silver to let her in to clean the place, mainly to have her there for me to chat to. Silver said he would on condition I’d let him give her more money and I didn’t dispute that. In some ways we were like a happily married couple, he and I, weren’t we?

But before all that I phoned Mum and Dad again. Most of their anger was for Max. Mum said she had never been so disillusioned about anyone in her life and Dad said people were so strange it just made character judgment impossible. They both took it for granted that I’d come home.

“You mustn’t be afraid to come back here, Clodagh.”

This was a novel view of the situation I had failed to see before. Where did they think I had been? In a hotel? I who had hardly any money and was close to letting Silver keep me?

“We shall let bygones be bygones,” my father said. “No one will say anything to you about that pylon business, so there’s no need to worry about that. Of course, we must have a talk.”