She led him into the kitchen. It was the same tiny space that he remembered, although completely refitted, so tightly crowded with new cupboards and shelving that there hardly seemed enough space to move, let alone cook. Yet there was a comforting kind of coldness to it, and a familiar smell of flour and butter, like there had been all those years ago. A deep yearning for the past hit him in the stomach, a desire to be transplanted there, back with his grandma, as if everything in the world might be resolved if only the verities of former times were within reach.

‘Here it is,’ she said, standing back to reveal an old sink, the kind that one might expect to find in the scullery of a far larger old house.

And above it was his grandma’s old mangle. It had been taken off its frame and mounted on the wall, so that it could be swung out over the sink, then back against the wall when not in use.

‘It was still in the cellar when we moved in. There’s nothing much down there now. We can’t afford to seal it against the damp, not yet. Something for the future. Here, have a go.’

She stood back and let him crank the mangle, ignoring the pain from his bandaged fingers. It was just the same, the wooden handle was still loose, and the mechanism still turned with a surprising stiffness. A little too hard for a young kid. His grandma had always had to stand behind and help him.

‘It means we don’t have to have the dryer on all the time.’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘We did a bit of research into your family after we moved here. Quite a fascinating story.’

‘Sicily to Leeds!’

‘And Blackpool.’

‘Yes, the summer seasons. But mainly here. Upstairs, I mean.’

‘Here?’

So he told her the story. His granddad had been drinking at the White Swan in Leeds, down behind the City Varieties theatre. It was February the fourteenth, 1957, the day that Bill Haley arrived. The whole city came to a stop as people flocked into City Square to catch a glimpse of the American star emerging from the station. Gustavo couldn’t get a tram home, and had to walk most of the way. Later that evening he switched on the television set in the front parlour, and Bill Haley’s arrival was on the local news. ‘I don’t want to be Charlie Cairoli’s sidekick forever!’ he announced. ‘I’m in the wrong game!’ With no one able to persuade him otherwise, he penned a letter of resignation to Blackpool Tower Circus, where he still had a contract for the following season. With that, the Romano Theatrical Agency was born.

‘And,’ Joe said, hoping his story hadn’t bored her, ‘for the rest of his life, the agency was based right here, up in the attics.’

‘Would you like to see them?’