The water disappeared down a plug hole and into a pipe that came out of the base of the bath and crossed the two or three feet to the concrete wall. Maggie had tried to figure out where it went – maybe to a drain or a pump or on to some patch of earth floor on the other side of the wall. She had also tried to pull it out, hoping to make a hole in the wall that she could enlarge. But it was stuck fast.

It went somewhere, though, and watching the water drain away tortured her. She always wished that she and Max – or Seb or Leo – could somehow dissolve into the water and escape through the drain.

She heard the scraping sound and waited for the door to open. The man stood there, a hose in his hand. He passed it to her and she squeezed the trigger. Warm water sprayed on to the base of the bath. Max sat on the mattress, playing with the tinfoil ball. The man stared at him, with a look Maggie had not seen before. There was interest, but it was the dispassionate interest of a scientist. Her stomach felt loose and her thighs were weak. She wanted to throw the hose at the man and scream for him to get out, but she didn’t. She held the hose over the bath and let it run.

When the bath was full, the man took the hose from her. He looked at the water.

‘Have fun,’ he said.

4

When the man was gone, Maggie stripped naked and climbed into the bath. The base of the bath was higher than the floor of the room. It had to be – the pipes for the drain needed some space under the plug hole – and it meant she had to bend extra low to pick up Max.

He was standing on the floor, in his underpants and a T-shirt, looking up at her. He gripped the bottom of the T-shirt and pulled it up, exposing the pale, smooth skin of his stomach. His belly button protruded about half an inch; she wondered whether it was because of the way she had cut the umbilical cord when he was born, or whether it would have been like that anyway.

He lifted his hands, stretching the cotton over his face. He wriggled his shoulders, bending at the waist and twisting his arms in a futile attempt to take the T-shirt off. She laughed; watching him try to undress but succeed only in wrapping himself even tighter in his clothes was one of the few sources of amusement she had.

‘Mummy,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘Can you help me?’

‘Of course,’ Maggie said. She straightened out the T-shirt – it was getting tight, he was growing so quickly – and pulled it off in one smooth movement.