They drank their tea surrounded by the teetering piles of groceries. Now that Pip had seen the state of the kitchen for herself, Evelyn couldn’t see any point in shielding her from it any longer. There was a kind of relief in allowing another person to see how she lived, not having to keep it as a guilty secret any more. She had felt so ashamed of her mess, but Pip hadn’t batted an eye at it; she seemed to have seen it as perfectly normal. Evelyn had been surprised at how quickly Pip had guessed how things had got so out of control. Immediately Evelyn had felt better and less inadequate.

Pip had moved seamlessly into clearing up a bit.

‘So, you grew up here?’ she asked as she rinsed their cups out. The sink was full of Evelyn’s washing up, but Pip had run a bowl of hot soapy water and set to work, quietly and without drawing attention to what she was doing.

‘I did,’ replied Evelyn to Pip’s back. ‘Then I left. And then circumstances pulled me back again.’

‘Yes, that’s kind of what happened to me, too,’ replied Pip.

She had hinted as much at their previous meeting and Evelyn was desperate to ask her to explain, but something stayed her tongue. It felt too soon to delve around in Pip’s past, unless Pip raised it of her own volition. Perhaps if Evelyn shared something of her own story then Pip would reciprocate. Evelyn considered the implications of this. Until now, her game plan had been to extract as much information from Pip whilst at the same time giving away as little as she possibly could, but now that felt petty. Did she think her story was too precious to be told to a stranger? Of course, she couldn’t expect Pip to open up to her if she wasn’t prepared to reciprocate. And she did want Pip to open up. What had started as curiosity about the name business had grown into a real desire to get to know her better. The young woman had been sensitive enough to realise that the diary was important and had returned it, and now she was here, quietly cleaning her kitchen for her. Evelyn could search a long time for someone as thoughtful.

So instead of asking Pip to explain why she had ended up back in Southwold, she began with her own tale.

‘The truth was, I couldn’t get away from here fast enough,’ she said. ‘I was desperate to be an actress, but my family, particularly my mother, thought that was frivolous. They discouraged me at every turn, which of course just made me more determined, and as soon as I could, I left here and went to London to seek my fortune.’

‘And what brought you back?’ Pip asked.