Nell watched as Maude poured a drink, leaning back against the kitchen counter and draining her glass in one long gulp. ‘You’ll have to get some more,’ she said, before belching appreciatively, and refilling her glass with water. Her sneaker lay by the bag on the floor; she didn’t comment on it. ‘Can Kym come and visit again?’

‘If you like. She might be a bit busy, though.’

‘Oh.’ Maude scratched at her wrist, the little daisy on the bracelet gleaming in the sunlight, the fine ribbon blue like the veins under her skin. ‘Nell?’

‘Yes?’

‘When’s Dad coming back?’

‘I don’t know. Soon.’

‘But he is coming back, isn’t he?’

‘Of course he is,’ Nell said. ‘He just has a lot of work stuff to sort out first.’

‘I mean – you’re not going to – separate, or anything?’

‘Good Lord, no. Absolutely not, Maudie. Wherever did you get that idea?’

‘I dunno.’ She took a sip of her water, turning to look out at the drying ground.

‘Do you like her? Kym?’ asked Nell. ‘She knows a lot about the house.’

‘Does she?’

‘She was telling me. Lots of people have lived here.’

‘I expect they have.’

‘And now there’s us.’

‘We don’t live here.’

‘Kym says that there was a family with twenty-two children that lived in this yard.’

‘Goodness.’

‘And not here, either. In one of the little cottages. All those babies,’ said Maude, her eyes widening. ‘Imagine.’

‘Yes,’ said Nell, ‘imagine.’

‘Can we go out this afternoon?’

‘Maybe.’

‘That means no.’

‘It means we’ll see how you feel.’

‘I feel fine.’

She did look better, more alert, anyway. Her colour was still a little high, but at least she was up and about.

She drank the last of her water, then turned on the tap, filling her glass again.

‘Maude?’

‘Hmm?’ She was still leaning against the sink, staring out of the window at the bankside.

‘We need to have a chat.’

Maude sighed and turned to face Nell, clutching the glass to her chest, beads of water soaking into her T-shirt.

‘You do understand we can’t keep the shoe, don’t you?’

Maude rolled her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do get it, Nell, not our house, not our shoe, blah, blah, blah.’

‘And really, if you think about it, it belongs in the bedroom, in the wall. And I went to put it back,’ said Nell, nodding towards the sneaker on the floor. ‘Only it wasn’t there, it was the wrong shoe.’

*

She started off all sympathetic and calm, like that day in Mrs Allingham’s office, but she was getting pissed off, Maude could tell.

‘I’m not cross.’