Simeon reaches across to Jenga and roughly wipes the tears from the child’s face. ‘You see this boy,’ he says, ‘his mother left him to die, in a carrier bag, on the train line.’

Kiama slides his hands over the little boy’s ears.

‘And the sisters, they were left in a farmhouse. The father was always working and when the farm hands came they acted on their urges with the girls. They will not be able to have their own babies because of what those men did to them on the farm.’

Purity makes her tsk noise and waves her hand in front of her face. ‘Terrible. Terrible. And of course Peter,’ she says, ‘he lost his father the same way we lost Emma. Peter saw everything.’

Kiama removes Jenga from his lap and leaves the house. He walks around the back, careful not to slip on the muddy trail of water which trickles down from the outhouse. He slides down the wall to the grass, suddenly nauseous. But it’s not from the hangover; it’s from picturing Jenga in a bag, the sisters alone in a farmhouse, Peter being witness to his mum’s killing. It makes him sick.

Yvonne follows him out; she stands above him but says nothing. He wipes his eyes with a sleeve but there are no tears.

‘The photos of this place are older than me,’ he says. ‘How can it still look the same? After all these years, all these volunteers, all this money. How comes it’s not any better? It doesn’t make sense.’

Yvonne slides down next to him, and he can tell she’s struggling not to touch the grimy wall or sit on the grass.

‘But think of how many children have passed through here in those years? Children who otherwise would have nothing. No home at all. Think about Simeon, he’s a skinny little toddler in those photos and now he’s at university.’

‘And what about Zipporah, scrubbing the floor while Simeon talks about her being abandoned like it’s some everyday thing and Peter, sitting there doing his homework while Purity talks about his dead parent. At least when people talk about me like that they don’t do it in front of my face.’ His voice breaks and he looks down at the grass.

‘They’re telling us these things because they think it’s what we need to hear, in order to help, so that we don’t forget about them once we go home.’

She doesn’t get it. No one does. ‘But it’s not right to say that stuff.’

‘I’m not disagreeing with you.’

‘Can you imagine what it’s like to grow up around so much sympathy?’

‘No. I can’t.’