She smiled at the men, signalled with her fingers that she was going away. ‘Ich werde zurückkommen,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back.’ She held her hands together and placed her head on them at an angle. ‘Rest. Ausruhen.’

They nodded, smiled, parchment skin cracking.

Geoffrey shut the attic door behind them, locked it. He put the key in his pocket.

They sat in the kitchen, elbows on the table, hands clasping their mugs.

‘You seem anxious,’ Dora said. ‘Why?’ Perhaps it was the brandy, made him jumpy.

He shook his head. ‘You never really know, do you?’ he said. ‘They could be Germans. Dressed up, to catch us out. They do that, you know? Pretend they’re OT workers, trick us.’

‘Those men are starving,’ she said. ‘They’re not Germans.’

‘Spies, then.’

She leaned over, placed her hand over his. ‘No, Geoffrey,’ she said. ‘They’re not spies.’

‘But if I was caught,’ he went on. Dark fears surfacing as the brandy took hold. ‘I don’t think I could survive. Locked away. The walls pressing in. I’d suffocate.’

‘You won’t be caught,’ she said. ‘And you’d be fine. How’s the farm? Your potatoes. Oats.’

He lifted his cup, drained it noisily. ‘You’re changing the subject.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘At least things look healthy here.’

Geoffrey shook his head. ‘Colorado potato beetle,’ he said. ‘They tell us it’s on the island. Nonsense. We’ve never had the beetle here.’ He reached over and poured himself some more tea. ‘They just want us to spray everything. God knows why. Poison us all, I suppose.’ He lifted his cup, put it down.

Dora shook her head. Surely not. But she was thinking about what he had said earlier, about imprisonment, locked in a cell where the walls marched forward and squeezed, tighter and tighter.

‘Have you ever been in prison?’ she said.

He looked at her for a long time before he nodded.

Dora shivered. ‘What for?’

‘Drunk and disorderly.’

‘Drunk and disorderly?’ She laughed, the relief. ‘Was that all? Was that how you broke your nose?’

‘I didn’t break my nose,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It was broken for me.’

‘In a brawl?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

She wanted to know, wanted him to be honest, not evasive, like he had been in the past. After all, a brawl was not so serious, and she’d seen him with a temper.

She leaned forward. ‘So what happened?’

‘I’m not proud of this,’ he said.

‘Is that why you’ve never told me?’

‘You’d have to know, sooner or later. Perhaps you’ve heard rumours already.’ He smiled. ‘You know what this place is like.’

‘Nothing specific,’ she said. ‘Though I was warned off you.’

‘Really? By whom?’

‘That would be telling.’ Two could play at secrets.