I had known Daphne less than two months but she had effortlessly blended into our lives. And now here we were, at ease with each other. We could sit in companionable silence, not feeling the other had to talk. We seemed to know what the other was thinking or feeling and acted accordingly. I suddenly realized that she never annoyed me. She was interesting and clever and independent and fun. She was kind and thoughtful, the way she played with you and knitted outfits for your teddies and dolls, or brought back little gifts, like your favourite sponge cake or fir cones from the woods that she sprayed silver and placed on the windowsill. She spent hours bent over her sewing machine to make you clothes. Last week she’d turned up with a Swiss cheese plant that was so big it obscured her head as she carried it through the door. It now sat in the corner by the fireplace. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was terrible with plants – they almost always died on my watch.

‘Do you have any sisters?’ I asked, forgetting our rule of no questions. I felt her stiffen but she shook her head, much to my surprise.

‘No.’

‘Me neither. And your parents?’

Daphne sipped her drink. The fire crackled in the hearth. All I knew about her was that she’d grown up in south London, not that far from where I’d lived with my parents, but moved away when she was eleven. Since then, she said, she’d lived ‘all over’.

She shook her head. ‘Long, boring story. I’m the black sheep. You know how it is?’

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

She turned away from me, not saying anything else, just staring into the fire, her eyes huge and sad.

After a few minutes she fixed her eyes on me again, something changing in her expression. ‘I’ve always kept myself to myself. Other places I’ve stayed, other people I’ve lodged with, I’ve kept at arm’s length. But you . . .’ her eyes softened ‘. . . you’re the only person I’ve let myself get close to, Rose. For a long, long time. I hope you don’t make me regret it.’

I felt myself blush. ‘Of course I won’t. But can I ask? Why me?’

‘I don’t know. I feel like we’re the same.’

She was right. I felt that too: both self-sufficient, determined to be strong, but also damaged. She was the first person I had let myself grow close to since I’d run away that terrible night three years ago. And I got the feeling it was the same for Daphne.