Takes her grandmother’s hand a little gingerly. Soaking up the smell of scented lotions, talcum powder, the sickly sweetness of the woman’s breath.

Celia Kidd looks down at her own hand, being held by a stranger’s. Then returns her attention to the cooking lesson.

“This is your daughter, Gillem?” Mandy sucks in her breath, eyes mock-wide. “I never knew you had a daughter. Celia, you never tell me about your granddaughter.”

“She lives in France,” says Gillem. And to his mother, “Near Collioure. Remember when we used to spend summers in Collioure, Mummy? Celia comes from Collioure.”

“She’s tall. How old are you, love? Does she speak English?”

“A little,” says Rat.

“Goodness. She look just like her gran, doesn’t she? Same big beautiful eyes.”

“Yes, she does,” Gillem agrees, with a wan smile. He glances at Rat with a kind of barely mastered desperation, as if pleading that she will get them out of there.

“Take a seat, love. Here on the sofa near your gran. Can I get you something to drink? Cuppa tea? Some coffee?”

“How is she today, Mandy?” Gillem asks. He sits down on the sofa beside Rat, but immediately gets up again and wanders over to the window. Outside, a curdled gray sky, office blocks, a highway overpass.

“Pretty good. She sleep well, she eat a good breakfast.”

“They don’t feed me here,” says the woman, sadly. “They pretend to bring me trays, but then when I try to eat, they snatch it away.”

Mandy laughs. “Yesterday, you bit me. Do you remember that, Celia? I was giving you a spoonful of carrots and instead you bite my finger?”

Celia’s gaze returns to the television screen.

“She has all kinds of little tricks. She likes to hide food away, don’t you, Celia? She’ll take the cheese and biscuits and she’ll hide them under the pillow. Once she even tried to put the custard under her pillow! Didn’t you, Celia? We have to watch out for all your little tricks, don’t we, Celia?”

“No.”

“Do you remember your son’s name, now, Celia? You tell me his name. Do you know his name?” To Rat, Mandy explains in a loud whisper, “I like to keep her mind working. We have all kinds of lessons we run through every day; I show her pictures from a magazine, pictures of her family. Who’s this one, who’s that. This is your son, Celia, isn’t it, now? What’s his name, again?”