Once the confusion about Wim was over, we were established as their shoppers. They need never go out again until the time came for them to leave. I was going to say that we wanted no gratitude but of course, privately, we did. Still, expecting people to be grateful is such a shameful thing that Silver and I left any feelings we had about it unexpressed, even to each other. Alison was always profuse in her thanks, saying she didn’t know what they’d have done without us, that we were “life savers,” and Jason’s face lit up when we brought him chocolate or a half-melted ice cream. There was something pathetic and, more than that, distressing, in the way he liked us, always kissed me and put his arms around my neck, not, I’m sure, because of our personalities or something in us he found attractive and charming, but purely because we brought him delicious things to eat.

It was different with Andrew. At first he actively disliked us, though from the first he showed a very unwelcome sexual interest in me. Gradually his defenses went down but never very far. I doubt if he ever came truly to trust us. And perhaps it was because of this, because distrust begets distrust, that when Alison asked for our surnames I said we were both called Brown. I didn’t want them to look up Silverman in the phone book, find our address, our phone number. Neither of them seemed to see anything odd in this, or perhaps they thought we were married to each other.

Our shopping for them, carried out solely to save the family from discovery, Andrew only grudgingly admitted to be of assistance. Strange as it sounds, I think part of his mind rebelled against what we were doing. Going out was dangerous for him but just the same he had enjoyed it, it was a brief taste of what freedom might be, it took him out of that flat and into the open air. It allowed him to see other people, other faces apart from Alison’s and Jason’s. I used to wonder (according to the diary) if, while cautiously going from shop to shop in Elgin Avenue or Clifton Road, he had ever had a wild thought of never returning but of filling his pockets with the money they had brought with them and running away.