Who could she bring home? She’d no real friends from school. Who wanted to be friends with a Nazi? That’s what they’d called her. Nazi. There had been all sorts in her class. Irish, Italians, Poles. Maltese, Latvians, Cypriots. Refugees, all of them, but not a single German. Nor a Jew. When the other girls talked about the war she bore the brunt of their blame. How could she answer back? She kept her head down and worked hard. She and Deirdre O’Cleary, whom no one liked either as her father was a tinker, so they said, only Dee got pregnant when she was seventeen and had to get married and that was the end of that. Besides, he’d banned Deirdre from coming to the house. Irish.

She missed Dee. They’d been thick as thieves once but had drifted apart when Dee had her babies and Betty went to college. She should get in touch. Dee’s father would have her address. Go out for a coffee. There was even a brand-new Wimpy Bar opened up in the centre of town. Perhaps they could go there, have a bite to eat, catch up on all the gossip. The children must be quite old now. She’d give Mr O’Cleary a ring later on from a telephone booth, so her father couldn’t eavesdrop, get Dee’s new address. Hello, stranger, long time no see. Yes, that would be fun.

She opened the French windows from the dining room, took out the portable card table that doubled as garden furniture, laid out a cloth and placed the tray on top. She fetched two kitchen chairs, poured the tea, passed him the milk, cut a slice of cake and handed it to him.

‘Dundee,’ he said. ‘My favourite. We’re lucky to have Mrs H.’

Mrs H had come with the house. She washed the kitchen floor each day, covering the lino with yesterday’s newspaper to protect it from dirt. She dusted and vacuumed, washed and ironed. She made their meals, baked their cakes and had tried to teach Betty the facts of life when she’d started her period. ‘I know all about it,’ Betty had said. She’d run to her bedroom and locked the door. I know what men do.

‘Why don’t you marry Mrs H?’ Betty said. ‘She’d look after you very well.’

‘She’s a fine woman,’ he said. ‘And an excellent cook. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so they say.’ Her father smiled, but it had no substance. His eyes wandered towards the old Anderson shelter and the purple and yellow pansies clustered at its base, like posies in a graveyard. Her mother’s favourite flowers.