We gave them our signal on the bell and Jason came. He wanted to know why we hadn’t brought Morna. His face registered bleak disappointment. Why do we mind so much when children who have been fond of us suddenly prefer someone else? It might be natural if it was our own child or a child we’ve been caring for for years, but we feel it when it’s a stranger’s child, any child. I wouldn’t have cared a bit if Andrew or Alison had liked Morna better than me or if Wim or Niall had. It must be because we know children’s emotions are genuine and can’t be disguised. They haven’t yet learned dissembling and subterfuge. I couldn’t show my feelings, of course, so I pretended not to miss the kiss I usually got. In the circumstances, it was good for him to like Morna best.

They had been packing. You could tell by the state of the suitcases, the things already in and the things discarded, that they were having to make agonizing choices. Alison, with what I thought amazing insensitivity, said, “I’d give you the ship in a bottle, Michael, only it’s not mine, it’s Louis’s.”

“Silver,” said Silver. “Not Michael.”

“Would you like one of the birds? You’re welcome if you would.”

“No, thanks. Have you all got your passports? If Jason’s wearing a jacket his should be in his jacket pocket by now.”

They showed us the passports. It reminded me of going on a school trip abroad, something I’d done once or twice, and the passport inspection that went on in the history room the day before we left.

“And your money,” Silver said. “How are you carrying that?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Would you like me to change it into £50 notes for you tomorrow? It would be less bulky. I’m sorry, I should have thought of that before.”

Andrew gave an unpleasant laugh. “You wouldn’t have thought of getting your hands on it, I don’t suppose?”

Silver went bright red, the way only people with transparent white skins can. But what he’d have said I never knew. There came a sound I hadn’t heard before in that flat. It was like the unmusical twittering of a flock of birds, the kind that chatter not sing.

“What’s that?”

“The front-door bell,” Alison said.

Andrew looked at her, then at Silver. “No one ever rings that bell. Well, they do. On a weekday morning maybe, the gas-meter man or whatever. We don’t answer. We have to send the bills to Louis. No one ever has called in the evening.”

He went to the window. The twittering began again. Insistent, prolonged, as if the little birds were anticipating a shower of crumbs. Andrew went to raise the sash.

“Don’t!” Alison shouted. “Don’t put your head out!”