I paused, trying to decide whether to press her. I got the impression that not wanting to put people out wasn’t the real reason.

‘I’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’ She smiled bravely.

‘What about your daughter? Would you consider staying with her?’

‘Oh, no. It’s all arranged. She’s popping back later to take me home to the shop.’

‘Is that wise? You’ve had a nasty scare.’

She shook her head. ‘Agnieszka and Olaf have a tiny terraced house and three children. They don’t have room for an old lady. I’ve made my mind up. I’m going home to the shop.’

There was pride in her features, and a reluctance to ask for help. I recognised it from Mum. A dogged refusal to accept limitations and change, and the need for help. But it was hard to know when pride became stubbornness. ‘Are you sure the shop is the best place though? It’s so damp and cold.’

She sighed. ‘I know but it’s my home. All my memories are there and it’s where I feel safe.’

Her face took on a wistful look and I felt desperately sad for her. ‘Would you mind if we contacted your daughter?’

She frowned, then shrugged in resignation. ‘If you want to.’ She was trembling now. ‘For years I had nightmares. My mother was pregnant with me when the Nazis resumed deportations from Warsaw to Treblinka. The Jews in the Ghetto mounted an armed resistance. There were twenty-seven days of bombs, blasts and gunfire while they fought the Germans. My brother was eight. He made the mistake of smiling at an SS officer, who ordered one of the Judenrat officials to shoot him. When the man refused, the SS officer shot him and my brother straight through the head.’

‘Oh, Rosa . . . ’ I gasped.

‘My mother nearly miscarried, but I made it and was born in 1944, the year of the Warsaw Uprising. It was when Christian Poles rose up against the Germans. My parents escaped from the Ghetto, and we lived outside the city with a Polish family that Dad knew from his old shop. They say you remember things from in the womb. Sounds, words, voices. For me, it’s blasts and gunfire.’ The expression in her eyes was haunted. ‘And my mother’s sobbing.’ She looked away for a few moments. ‘I used to have the dreams regularly, even when the war was over and when we arrived here. Once we settled into life in Brick Lane, they receded. I haven’t had them for years, apart from the occasional one. The fire at the soup shop yesterday . . . ’ she was shaking her head, ‘ . . . brought it all back.’ She coughed, and I heard her chest wheeze. ‘There was a woman on the ground in front of me. The cracks and bangs were so loud, I tripped over her.’