Annie took another mouthful and held out the spoon to Lizzie and so they alternated, Annie holding back from taking very much while trying to look as if she was really tucking in. Once she got going, Lizzie ate with relish.

‘Does your sister come every day?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I’ve told her she needn’t,’ Annie said. ‘But she likes getting out and about. It gets her out of the office.’

Lizzie took another mouthful. Now that she was eating she seemed unable to stop.

‘She works in the office with our auntie, you see.’

‘Have you always lived with your auntie?’ Lizzie asked, frowning.

‘Oh – no. We’re just . . .’ How could she explain this? Annie thought. ‘We’re just staying for a while. Getting to know them . . .’ She wanted to get off the subject. ‘And the others in the building. There’s a gem setter upstairs – and an enameller called Jack Sidwell.’ She rolled her eyes comically. ‘I think he’s sweet on me. Every time I’m in the house he keeps lurking about on the stairs. I avoid him like the plague.’

Lizzie’s eyes widened and she put her hand over her mouth, bursting into giggles like a little girl.

Annie felt a bit guilty, joking about Jack Sidwell, but his keenness on her was so unsubtle and obvious that the whole household was aware of it. And it was fun chattering with a girl like Lizzie. It was so different from her childhood home where everyone was so earnestly purposeful and tried not to gossip, which was virtuous but dull. She had always had devilish thoughts about people and now she could let some of them out!

‘Every time I go past he just flattens himself against the wall and stands there with his mouth open!’

Lizzie was giggling all the more and a couple of the others glanced over at them.

‘What’re you tittering about, Lizzie?’ one of them called.

‘Nothing,’ Lizzie said, still grinning.

‘I’ll come and see your mother after,’ Annie said as they got up to go.

‘There’s no need,’ Lizzie assured her, looking anxious. It was as if a distance had opened between them again.

But as Lizzie was finding out, there was no arguing with Annie.

‘Mom,’ Lizzie said as they walked into the house. ‘I’m back – and I’ve got the lady . . . Annie, with me again.’

Mrs Poole was at the table, in front of the scattering of cards Annie had seen the night before and a pile of tiny white buttons which she was bent over, squinting and sewing on to the cards. She also seemed to have a second task of glueing boxes together, but they looked rough and unsatisfactory and there was a horrible, rancid smell of glue in the room.