She gave a barely concealed sigh. The constant battle against men and their proprietorial nature. All the words she really wanted to say to him ran through her head, but she bit them back. If she spoke them, he would tell William that she had been rude to him, and she would lose her job. That couldn’t happen. To further help her keep the cascade of abuse inside, she allowed herself to imagine returning to the place that had taken her so long to escape from.

No. She couldn’t lose this job, this home. It was everything. It had saved her.

She fixed a smile on her face, bright on the surface, icy cool beneath if one looked hard enough.

‘Oh, you,’ she said. ‘Have a nice day, Mr Henderson.’ And she slipped inside before he could delay her further.

Inside the dim, dark hallway, she let the carrier bags drop to the floor as she leaned against the door.

‘That you, dear?’ called a tremulous voice from the kitchen. ‘Come in, I’m just putting the kettle on.’

Anna paused. William hardly ever felt well enough to make a cup of tea. That was why he employed her. Cautiously, she picked up the carrier bags and moved through to the kitchen.

The first thing she noticed was that he was dressed. And not just in his old T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, but actually dressed, in a shirt and a suit and even a tie! Her gaze went to the doormat, and the pair of shiny black shoes that sat there, the edges crusted with blades of grass. A brown leaf was stuck to the sole of the left shoe.

‘William, have you been… outside?’ she asked suspiciously.

Unable to hold it in, he beamed at her. ‘I have,’ he said. He held his arms out wide and turned in a circle, gripping the edge of the worktop as he moved painfully slowly. ‘I don’t scrub up too bad for an old git, do I?’

Anna felt as unsteady as William looked. He never went outside. Not even into the garden in the spring or summer, and definitely not when it was a cold, wet autumn day like today.

He wobbled, and Anna threw the bags on the old wooden kitchen table and dashed to his side.

‘You need to sit down,’ she said. ‘Come on, I’ll finish the tea.’

He allowed himself to be led, and Anna put an arm around his waist, taking almost all of his weight upon her slight frame. In the living room, she lowered him into his chair.

‘Did you get my things?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘And what did you buy for yourself?’ he asked, resting his head back and smiling up at her.

Anna smiled back. ‘A dress,’ she said, and then, coyly, ‘Would you like to see it?’