Chloe’s appetite has gone. She lines her knife and fork up in the middle of the plate.

‘Want me to take that for you?’ Patrick says, extending his hand out for her plate. Chloe looks up at him but she doesn’t want to meet his eye because she can feel her mask slipping and she’s afraid he’ll see it too. She hands him the plate.

‘I’ve just realized,’ Maureen says, turning to Chloe and breaking their gaze, ‘we haven’t seen you in your new blouse yet!’

Patrick puts Chloe’s plate in the sink and returns to the table. ‘What’s that, love?’

‘You know, the blouse I made for Chloe with that bit of material, the one you like with the yellow flowers.’

‘Christ, you’ve had that for years, woman.’

‘I know, but I thought . . .’ She hesitates for a moment. ‘Well, it suits Chloe’s colouring, don’t you think?’

Patrick looks across at Chloe; he leans back in his chair. ‘Can’t say I remember it all that well.’

‘Oh, you do, Pat. Chloe, nip upstairs and put it on, let Pat have a look at you. Honestly, Patrick, it’ll come straight back to you the minute you see it.’

Maureen looks at Chloe.

‘That dinner was lovely, thank you,’ Chloe says, pointing at the sink, trying desperately to change the subject.

‘You’re welcome, Chloe, love,’ Maureen says. ‘Now are you going to run upstairs and pop that top on so Pat can see you?’

She looks from Maureen to Patrick.

‘Sorry?’ Chloe says.

‘The blouse I made you, Patrick would like to see it on.’

‘Oh, it’s just, well . . . I’m a bit—’

‘Nonsense, my love, you’re perfect. Go on, won’t take you a minute.’

Chloe waits for Patrick to say something – anything – she doesn’t know why, but instead he’s looking at her expectantly.

‘Well, go on then,’ Maureen laughs, ‘we haven’t got all night.’

Chloe stands up slowly from the table, and with calls of encouragement from the kitchen, she heads out into the hallway and up the stairs. In her room, as instructed, she slips off her top and pulls the blouse over her shoulders. She stands in front of the mirror, as she had the last time she had worn it. She parts her hair in the middle, just like the photograph and picks up the same two bunches. And it’s there again; the resemblance is uncanny. Chloe shivers. She tells herself that Josie was right: that she is a grown woman, that Angie was a little girl. How could they be comparable? But as she shuffles out onto the landing, picking up the photograph in the frame, even she has to admit, the resemblance is striking, undeniable.

Downstairs, Maureen and Patrick are laughing. So different from the atmosphere of the last few days: the arguing, the shouting, the tears. What has changed?