Zoë listens to this conversation as though from a great distance. Though they are all standing around in her house it seems to have very little to do with her. She rolls over to get comfortable but a spasm of pain in her guts cramps her into a ball. ‘I have to go to the lavatory,’ she gasps, and starts to cry.

‘You need to drink,’ says Efi. She has brought a tin mug of water and holds Zoë’s head up so that she can sip. ‘Drink it all. We’re going to make you some soup.’

‘With what?’ Zoë is feeling a little clearer. She has just had a bad turn. A couple of hours’ sleep and she’ll be ready to walk back into Athens.

‘With these,’ says Mr Castanides, who has slipped out and reappeared with a bunch of young nettles and dock leaves. ‘They’ve started to come up where we had the chickens,’ he says. ‘There were only a few, just enough for the missus and me,’ he adds, apologetically, ‘but what with the sunshine …’

‘Thank you,’ Zoë says, and tries to sit up.

‘You must do nothing, darling, for at least a week,’ says Efi, pushing her down again briskly. ‘I didn’t realise you were so weak. You’ve been hiding it from us.’

‘It’s my business and no one else’s,’ Zoë mutters. She has never accepted help from anyone. Why should this war make her change?

‘For fuck’s sake,’ says Efi genially. ‘I’m not going to have you end up like Marika. We’ll boil these up with some salt from the sea—’

‘What are you going to boil it with? Your breath?’

‘Voula found a few pieces of coal last night, up by the Germans.’

‘Aman …’ Zoë closes her eyes again.

‘Yes, we’ll make it and you’ll drink it all, do you understand?’ Efi snaps. ‘Or I will kill you myself. Hear that, Sólon? I’ll murder her.’

‘I hear. Do you want to be responsible for that, Zoë? It’ll be your fault when I lock Efi up for killing you.’

‘Go to the devil,’ Zoë tells them, but she is chuckling. ‘I’m going to die anyway.’ It makes her feel better, oddly, to say it aloud. What a relief. I’m sorry, Tom, she thinks, but I won’t be here when you come back for me.