‘Did you ask him about that new boy?’ She blew up into her fringe and waited for my answer.

‘Howard?’

‘All I wanted was to help him,’ I said, picking up my coat.

‘Kathryn not with you?’ Mum asked as she opened the door. She was still wearing her flowered tabard.

I shook my head and stepped into the familiar smell of cooked meat and furniture polish. ‘That’ll need doing again soon,’ I said, tapping the hallway wallpaper she’d chosen a few years ago. It was brown and stripy, which we’d thought wouldn’t go out of fashion. There was a patch of beige where the sun had shone too fiercely through the glass in the front door.

‘You’re very busy, though, Howard.’

We went into the kitchen and Mum untied her tabard. She hung it on the back of the door and pressed both sides of her hair, as if to straighten her head. ‘Shampoo and set tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting you.’ She cleared some newspapers from a chair. ‘It’s not often I have my son all to myself.’

‘I’ll make some tea,’ I said.

I reached for the caddy with the Chinese pattern. I’d loved playing with the empty tea caddy as a child, filling it with dominoes or marbles and wondering at their reflection on the shiny gold insides. That tin always seemed so much more precious than its contents.

‘Is Kathryn all right?’ Mum asked, spreading her hands out flat on the tablecloth.

‘Fine. She’s fine.’

‘Still working – ’

‘At the library. Yes.’

‘Good. That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘She likes it.’

‘It’s good for her to be busy. Now that Robert’s growing up.’

Steam from the kettle dampened my face. A slick of yellow fat lay on the milk I’d poured in both our cups.

We waited for the tea to brew.

‘Is there a reason for this visit, Howard?’

‘No reason.’

I could tell Mum was studying my face, so I looked away. A small silence grew.

‘Tea,’ I said.

Mum watched me pour.

‘I was looking at some old photos yesterday,’ I began.

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes. There was one of me sitting on your garden bench. By the forsythia bush. I must have been about nine. It was funny. I hardly recognised myself.’

‘You were all frizzy hair and freckles then.’

I put the pot down. Rain had started to batter at the window, big drops of it running down and settling on the sill. The back door gave a rattle in the wind.

I brought our tea over to the table and sat down. ‘But I didn’t remember looking so, well, feminine,’ I said.