‘I’ve just been jilted,’ she said.

‘Thought you wanted to kill someone just now,’ Dee said. ‘From the look on your face, and the way you were pointing your fingers.’

‘I did,’ Betty said. ‘I really did.’ A Luger. He’d played dead, like a snake. ‘I kicked him so hard, my foot hurt.’

Dee laughed. ‘Well, good for you, Bets. I hope you got him where it matters.’ She clamped her hand over her mouth, looking at the small boys standing in front of them, staring. ‘Whoops.’ She pulled a face. ‘Young ears flapping. What are you doing here?’

The memories were slinking away, leaving footprints, debris. She sat, still, collecting herself. Picking up the broken bits, fitting them together, putting them in place. A jigsaw of her life. She’d just knocked her boyfriend for six. Half an hour ago, not half a lifetime. She was sitting outside King’s Cross station with trolley buses passing by and her oldest friend beside her.

‘I was on my way home,’ Betty said, breathing out, turning to Dee, smiling. ‘Where are you going?’ She hadn’t seen her for years but it was as if they had never parted. Fate, that’s what it was, Dee being here.

‘Taking the kids to see my dad,’ she said. ‘Duty visit. Are you still living in Hatfield?’

Betty nodded. ‘Unfortunately, yes. You?’

‘No,’ Dee said. ‘Me and Kevin are buying a little house in Willesden. It’s only a semi, three bed, but it’s ours.’

‘Buy?’ Betty said. ‘You’ve done well for yourself.’

‘Everyone wrote us off, me and Kevin,’ she said. ‘But he’s a qualified electrician now. Earns good money, and once the kids went off to school, I trained as a nurse. You haven’t met my boys, have you? Here.’ She tugged at the biggest one’s sleeve. ‘Say hello. This is Auntie Betty. This is Graham, and this little tiger is Martin.’

Betty smiled at them. ‘They’re lovely boys,’ she said. ‘You must be proud.’ Dee was the only friend she knew with children. Hearing herself being called ‘auntie’ was a shock.

‘Mmm,’ Dee said, her face stern for a moment, before she smiled and winked. ‘Sometimes. What train are you catching?’

‘I don’t know,’ Betty said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, we’re heading for the 12:10,’ she said. ‘So why don’t we go together?’

Dee was a proper adult, with a job and family and mortgage. She was taking charge and Betty knew that Dee would always take charge, that when the chips were down, Dee would know what to do. The nuns, her father, everyone, they’d all been so wrong about her at school. Dee was a stalwart, shoulders like Atlas.

They had the carriage to themselves. The boys grabbed the window seats and Dee produced two comics, a bag of crisps and a bottle of Tizer.