For the first time in my life I properly understood my mother’s pallor, her not-quite-there quality. The impression she gave, even at this distance and in the shallow recesses of a child’s memory, of being an onlooker in her own life. She must have known. Poor Faye. She was the hollow, the empty space at the centre of this sad story, not Ted or even Audrey.

‘Why didn’t you become his proper wife, after my mum died?’ I tried, but I couldn’t quite keep the harshness out of my voice.

Audrey was still looking away. She was sharply silhouetted against the light and I could see the line of coarse hairs at the corner of her mouth. She would tell her story at her own pace.

‘We rented a little flat. Not so very far from here. Just two rooms, on the first floor, but there were tall windows overlooking a square. I went on working as a shorthand typist, kept house for him, sat and waited for him to come back when he was away.’ Audrey gave a little cough of laughter. ‘I was a proper fool, wasn’t I? But you can make yourself believe what you want to believe. My grandma died and left me a legacy, and I made the money straight over to him. He wanted to get out of Phebus and start up on his own. It was going to be our big chance. Then I got pregnant. I thought he’d be pleased, but he was angry. He told me he didn’t want children, never did and never would, and I couldn’t tie him down that way. Tie him down, those were the actual words. I thought married people didn’t think things like that about each other. He gave me the money to get myself sorted out. Some of my own money back, it must have been. Really, I paid for my own abortion that I didn’t want to have anyway.’ She was talking as if she had forgotten I was listening, talking out loud to herself as truly lonely people do. ‘Afterwards, he was good to me. Flowers, presents, promises and stories about all the successes we were going to have. But it didn’t work. It was as if my silly innocence had been skewered out of me along with the baby. I started putting two and two together. Anyway, I ended up going through his things one night while he was asleep. Found an address in Hendon and when I went up there, what did I see?’

I said nothing, but I could guess.

‘I saw Faye coming home with her shopping bags, and you in hairslides and white socks skipping along beside her.’

She laughed again, a sound that made the nearest cat stir and turn its yellow eyes to her. ‘Ha. Do you remember the perfume? Innominata. Nameless, faceless. A wife all right, but one to keep hidden.’