She shoved another cigarette into her mouth and, without lighting it, turned and went striding down the hill.

A building at the bottom of the hill was still smouldering and some workmen were clearing away the rubble. There was a queue at the army checkpoint and they stood there among the women with shopping baskets and prams, shuffling along a few feet at a time. Bags open. Shuffle. Kathleen lit her cigarette as they waited. Hands patting up and down you. ‘Ta, love.’ The faces remote as the hands slide over their bodies. ‘Next.’ Bags open. No love lost. ‘Any bombs in the pram, love?’ No time for jokes. Guns always at the ready. Bags open. Never turn your back on a Mick.

Feet shuffled and the shopping bags were moved from arm to arm, to ease the weight. The windows of the shops boarded and the Guildhall framed by scaffolding. Grey piles of stones and overhead the cannons pointing across the river. Their day was done.

A crane was working on the quay and they stood and watched it gently swing its load from ship to shore. A couple of men stood near them and watched also. Long lengths of timber were stacked on the wharf. Curled ropes and lengths of chain and the high buildings stained with flour dust. The cars moved slowly over the cobbles. Three men stood on the deck of a ship talking in low voices, their eyes warily on the movements of the crane. A cat sat near them, fluffing out its fur to keep the wind from penetrating.

‘Look,’ said Joe. ‘A cat. They have a cat. Would you have thought of that?’

‘A sea cat. Lots of boats have cats.’

‘You wouldn’t think they’d like the water.’

‘I don’t suppose they go near the water.’

‘I mean storms and things. Suppose they get seasick?’

Kathleen laughed.

‘Poor cat.’

They went closer to the edge of the wharf. The water slopped between the ship and the wall and an empty cigarette packet bobbed up and down. The cat got up and stretched itself, one leg at a time and then moved slowly in through a door, as if it owned the place. The men took their eyes off the crane for a moment and looked at Kathleen. Seagulls wheeled and mewed. The wind made the flags dance. One of the men shouted something at Kathleen in a foreign language. She smiled and waved at him. He had very white teeth, like china cups, Joe thought. Water foamed suddenly out of a hole in the side of the ship.

‘Someone is pulling the chain,’ he said.

‘Or washing up,’ suggested Kathleen.

‘Or having a bath.’

‘Or brushing their teeth.’

Joe saw a whole row of men brushing their white china teeth and spitting, simultaneously, peppermint-flavoured foam into a big hole.

‘That’s what they’re doing,’ he said.