‘Too many years,’ says Selena, shifting Lottie from one shoulder to the other. ‘It would be good to move on, but we can’t afford it. Bill’s gardening business earns enough to keep us going. I should work, but it’ll be hard to find care for Lottie, and besides, we waited so long for her to arrive, I don’t want to leave her. Not yet.’ She kisses the top of the baby’s head. ‘I used to teach yoga; maybe I’ll give private lessons. It works for the woman upstairs.’

Marina takes the chance to talk about Eva. ‘She teaches piano? I’ve heard her playing. She’s very talented, but does she always play in the middle of the night?’

Selena laughs. ‘Yes, and I would complain, but I’m usually awake at that time anyway, with this one, and I find it soothing.’

The baby is stirring, her face puckering. Selena prepares to feed her and Marina looks away politely. Her gaze fixes on the bookcase.

Selena notices. ‘Feel free.’

The books are mostly non-fiction coffee-table books about art and Scandinavian furniture and places to visit. There’s one about interior design which Marina is about to investigate further, when she notices a hardback. The spine is battered and worn. Pulling it out, she discovers a volume of poetry: Donne, Fletcher, Jonson. The book is covered in a fine brown dust; the cover is detached and frayed at one end. She turns it over carefully and examines the first page. The writing is difficult to decipher, but she makes out the names of previous owners. Mr R. Morfitt 1884; Joyce Davidson 1945; Timothy something or other; and a note in faint pencil saying Not to be sold. She frowns and then smiles, remembering. The same words were written in some of the books she found in the attic. Maybe Selena had retrieved this one from there.

The paper wears the ghostly imprint of fingerprints. The breath of book lovers is caught inside its pages. She turns the stiff, yellowing pages and experiences an emotion akin to when she’s close to old art and ancient places. Marina picks out memories of poetry lessons at school and remembers a few lines of Donne:

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

She glances at Selena to ask about the book, but she is feeding her baby, absorbed in the moment. It seems intensely private and Marina looks away, but the image is fixed. Mother and child. Tears prick her eyes as she returns the book to its place and brushes the dust from her fingers. She takes out the one on interior design and opens it randomly at a page about choosing the colour of the walls to suit your personality.

‘You can borrow that if you like,’ says Selena, looking up.