Hélène presented him with the flowers, but kept the rag doll to herself. As he accepted them, he grinned and took her by the hand. ‘You’re still a picture. Isn’t she a picture, Noelle?’

Noelle was busy arranging a tray with a teapot and saucers, all the best china brought out for their visitor, so she only rolled her eyes at her husband and grinned, ‘You always say it and you’re always right’, before shuffling out of the room.

Maurice was a big man, in height as well as girth. To see him alongside Noelle was to imagine that a pixie had married a giant. He had big, brawny forearms and hands that made the cups and saucers his wife had laid out look like toys. His whiskers were tufts of white and he kept them solely because his wife told him not to, because it entertained him to see her cringe away when he went to kiss her goodnight.

‘It’s good to have you, girl. Here, get off those feet. You’ve come a long way.’

There was not a place in the world that felt more like home to Hélène. Her own parents might have had that palatial house off the seafront in Rye, but this basement flat in Brixton seemed, to her, the world entire. The photographs on the wall, the mirror bought at the second-hand market, the towers of beer mats Maurice and his sons had collected from their visits to the local free houses. All of these were like holy relics to Hélène. Never mind the four-poster bed in the room at Rye. She wasn’t welcome there any longer – and, even if one day they condescended to take her back, she wouldn’t give them the time of day. Here, Hélène thought. Here is home.

Maurice was clearing a place for her on the sofa, when Hélène spoke. ‘Can I see her?’

‘Samantha has her. They’re in the back bedroom. Don’t think you need to ask, Hélène. This is your house too. We’ve said that from the start.’ Maurice paused and smiled gently. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Be on with you!’

Hélène held onto the rag doll and turned sideways to squeeze along the cluttered hallway, past the kitchen and ‘master bedroom’ and to the little box room at the end.