Recognizing poverty, Jean produced the florentines from her Peter Jones bag and handed them to Martha, a trifle self-consciously. “I brought you these.”

A slow, wide smile transformed Martha’s pinched face and while it lasted she looked quite beautiful.

“Did you actually? Thank God for you. I haven’t had a treat like this for ages. Let’s eat them now.” She began to tear at the cardboard packaging before Jean had even had a chance to sit down. “I’ll make some coffee to go with them. I hate tea without milk. Come into the kitchen.”

She waved Jean ahead of her with her walking stick into a long, narrow room in a state of considerable disorder. The sink and draining board were piled with unwashed dishes, while the small table, covered with yellow oilcloth, scorched and melted in places by contact with hot pans, held a pair of leather boots and a can of dubbin. The tiled walls were streaked with greasy condensation and spatters of oil, these markings increasing in concentration in the vicinity of the stove. On the bowed shelves chipped crockery, dusty jars of utensils and various unappetizing packages and cans jostled for space.

Jean proceeded gingerly across the sticky floor, which crunched underfoot from a coating of spilled salt or sugar, past a wooden frame hung with items of female underwear not normally on public display—stout black knickers, ribbed vests and flesh-colored stockings like withered legs. Even Jean, whose housekeeping efforts never went much beyond the surface of things, was dismayed. Martha herself appeared unembarrassed by or perhaps oblivious to the disarray, humming cheerfully as she hunted for two clean mugs among the debris, giving them a quick wipe on the hem of her smock.

When they were installed once more in the studio with their coffee and the ripped box of florentines between them, Jean said, “Do you remember much about your time at St. Cecilia’s?”

“Yes,” said Martha through a mouthful of cookie shards. “I remember it all, apart from those times when I was dosed to the gills with opiates, of course. They couldn’t do a thing for me. I was no better when I went out than when I went in. But perhaps the aim never was to cure me—perhaps it was just to provide respite for my parents. I didn’t think of that at the time; it only occurred to me later.”

“You don’t see your parents anymore, I gather,” said Jean, trying to feel her way around this delicate subject.

“How do you know that? Have you spoken to them?” Martha reached for another florentine.

“Only to try and get an address for you. Your father asked me to send you his good wishes.” Something like that. Jean couldn’t now recall his exact form of words, only an impression of aloofness that was both unparental and unchristian.

Martha raised her eyebrows. “Well,” she said. “That’s a surprise.”

“He said your mother’s not in the best of health. That was the gist.”