Rat picks around in the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinets. There’s plenty of food, including some leftovers worthy of Florian’s granny, but she’s trying to avoid anything that looks as if Kate might be intending it for dinner. Eventually settles on half a dozen eggs, a lettuce, olive oil, mustard. No vinegar visible. The only salt, unsettlingly enough, is pink and claims to come from a Jurassic salt pan.

“What’s Jurassic? I thought it was some kinda dinosaur. Want to try some dinosaur salt, Mo? Think they’ve got dinosaur eggs to go with it?”

No bread. After a vigorous hunt, unearths something labelled “Irish soda bread” that’s vaguely cakey. It’s underbaked, which makes it more filling. She cuts Morgan a thick slice while he’s waiting.

“Shall we put on some music?”

She rummages through the McKanes’ CD collection, looking in vain for something she’s ever heard of.

When Gillem comes in from his studio later that afternoon to check on his guests, he finds the two children seated at a laid table like an old married couple, Bach’s The Art of Fugue playing in the background.

There’s a smell of melted butter, an order, a ceremoniousness to the scene that’s touching in this pair of waifs. On the table, an omelette and a green salad. The girl, a ferocious-looking penknife in hand, is hacking off a slice of soda bread. A beggar’s banquet.

She is saying something to her brother in her rapid southern street-French, gesticulating with the knife in her hand, and the boy gives a dark rich little chuckle. When he looks at his sister, his face is completely different—not wall-like impassive, but vivid, shining.

The girl now catches sight of Gillem and rises to her feet, wiping the knife clean on her corduroys before folding the blade and slipping it back into her pocket.

She’s cleaner than she was last night, black hair slicked back wet. She’s not so ghastly white-faced, either, though she still looks wary, feral.

How was it Kate described her looking? “Like an alley-cat version of your mum.”

Because what is shocking is how much this child does resemble Gillem’s mother—not just in coloring or bone structure, but in her very bearing, too. It’s like catching a glimpse of Celia Kidd when she was still an unknown schoolgirl. Before she had been scorched, rendered permanently radioactive by the world’s eyes.

“Oh good, you found yourselves something to eat,” he says.

“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind,” she replies. “Would you like some omelette?”

“Thanks—I’ve just had tea.” He bends over, curious. “Why are the eggs green?”

“I found some herbs in a pot. Was that all right?”