We follow her into the lounge, where a little girl’s sat watching the television. She doesn’t look at us when we enter, staring straight ahead at the screen. Kate walks over and turns it off.

‘Lola, these people are here to read some books with you. They’ve brought them from the library.’

The girl looks up at us and then back at the telly despite it being off.

‘Lola,’ says Kate again.

‘It’s all right,’ says Arnold, putting down his little stool. ‘Lola can join in later if she wants to. I’m just going to put the books down here and see if there’s one I can read to Edie. She’s new and hasn’t heard all of the stories yet.’

‘I haven’t,’ I say, my heart breaking for Lola and her hollow-looking expression. I recognise it from how I used to see myself in the mirror. It’s a disjointed look, like you’re there in body only and your mind’s somewhere else entirely.

When I’d been considering volunteering, I’d been weighing up mainly whether I’d be brave enough to read to the kids, not whether I’d be emotionally up to the job. Miles had tried to warn me that it might be tough, but I hadn’t listened.

‘I’m thinking that perhaps I’d like to hear a story about an animal. A unicorn …’ My voice is a bit shaky. I search Lola’s face but there’s nothing. ‘Or perhaps something more exotic?’

‘How about this one, it’s about a whale?’ says Arnold, taking it out of the box and beginning to read.

I’m not sure what I’d expected from these sessions but not the stillness and silence that is coming from Lola.

After Arnold’s book comes to an end, I try a book about a princess. I even put on the kind of voices that would have made the improv crew proud, but there’s still nothing.

We read another book, and then another. After each one Kate smiles.

‘That was good, wasn’t it?’ she says, but Lola remains passive.

‘You know, Lola, we can leave some of the books with you,’ says Arnold at the end of the session.

There’s a slight twitch from Lola. She doesn’t move her head, just her eyes towards the box.

‘That’s kind of them, isn’t it?’ says Kate, and Lola props herself up a little straighter, her head now turned towards the box.

‘What about one about llamas?’ asks Arnold.

No reaction.

‘Let’s see,’ I say, digging in. ‘We’ve got one about racing cars, fairies, a Peppa Pig one, one about witches.’

She leans a little closer and I pull the book out and I place it on the sofa next to her.

She looks over it and she traces her finger over the raised edges of the witch’s skirt.