“Do you think we should move it?” she asked Peter.

He knelt to look under their bed and decided there was a chance the workmen might notice that one floorboard was looser than the rest and decide to fix it. “Where else could it go?” he asked, glancing around the room. There weren’t many options.

“I am packing away the toys the children no longer play with. I could put the bag inside that wooden train you made for Stepan.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps we should throw it in a canal. We have no use for it.”

Maria instinctively felt she did not want to lose this last connection with her Romanov past. Things might change. Maybe she would be able to visit her aunt Olga in Copenhagen one day, selling a jewel to pay the fare. Maybe she would hear of Tatiana’s whereabouts and need money to travel to her.

“I’ll cover the toys with blankets and stack them in a box in the corner with all the other boxes,” she suggested. “No one will dig down so far.”

Peter chuckled. “I suppose you can’t separate a grand duchess from her jewels.”

The decorating works commenced and they came home each night to the smell of fresh paint and rooms that looked brand new. The gleaming walls made their curtains and rugs appear shabby in comparison, so Maria took them down and cleaned them, beating the rugs in the outdoor courtyard.

The day the hot tap was connected brought universal excitement, followed, a month later, by shock when they realized how much extra they would have to contribute to the communal electricity bill. A rota was drawn up, allocating set times in the bath to the occupants of each apartment and indicating what proportion of the bill each household would pay.

One October morning, Maria was hanging out laundry in the yard while Yelena and Mikhail played hopscotch. She saw Raisa on the staircase and called a greeting. “The weather’s still mild so I hope the washing will dry quickly.”

“Just another week till the cold weather,” Raisa predicted. “I can feel it in my knees.” She looked over her shoulder to check if anyone was listening. “Will you ask Peter to have a word with that young man at number eight? He takes such long baths in the evening that we fall asleep before it’s our turn.”

“Why not get your husband to talk to him?” Maria replied. “Peter is always so tired when he gets home, I don’t like to ask him to do anything extra.”

“My husband is also tired.” Raisa sniffed, an edge to her voice. Her husband had not made the grade as a shock worker and it clearly irked her.

“Yes, of course,” Maria agreed. “Perhaps I will talk to him myself. Maybe he does not understand the rota.”