They are great fun, these raids on the kingdom of the wealthy. The children are amazed by the smart new cars, by the marble buildings, the shops – especially in Kolonaki – that are full of things. Mannequins draped in glossy furs, windows full of nothing but gentlemen’s hats, or pens, or books. Restaurants. Cafes where men in linen suits sit at marble tables and read gigantic newspapers. It reminds her, of course, of home, though if she is honest with herself, Zoë isn’t sure that she remembers what home really means. When she wanders through these streets, memories come to her in odd ways, and sometimes it is as if she is walking among ghosts. In turn, it is very obvious that Zoë and Pavlo are nothing more than ghosts here. They flit through the city, which is as unreal to them as a stage set, invisible to everyone, even the police. At least they aren’t alone. There are a hundred thousand children just like them in the shanty towns around Athens and Piraeus. They all look the same: threadbare clothes darned and patched and worn out from constant cleaning; brown, stringy limbs; stomachs that are always growling; and hair cut short to make it easier to comb out the lice. Zoë can tell her kind from one quick glance: it is the eyes that give them away. Bigger than they should be, from what they’ve seen, and sunk just a little deeper in freckled, gaunt faces that have aged out of step with the passing of ordinary time. Her face, when she can be bothered to look at it in Mama’s powder compact mirror.

If they are noticed, likely as not they will be jeered at. Turks is what they are called, or dirty refugees. Sometimes people throw them coins, especially when Pavlo is ferreting around on the pavement next to some cafe or other, picking up dog-ends. Enough, rarely, to buy themselves a small pastry or a piece of fruit. But they are always hungry when they ride back to Piraeus.

Zoë sits at the table, feeling uncomfortably full. She has eaten more in the past half hour than in the whole of the last two weeks, surely. Huge yellow butter beans stewed with tomatoes; a heap of the tiny fish called gopes that children fish out of the harbour with nets made of old stockings; a slightly over-charred chicken wing trailing a succulent rag of breast meat. Her hand had been slapped away from the lamb chops – for grown-ups only – but she has sawed her way through a stringy lump of goat and picked the slippery curls of flesh from more snail shells than she can count.

‘I’m dying,’ she groans happily to Mama.