Jim leans against the drainer, nursing his own mug. ‘No, no it’s only Gwen and me. Her mother died when she was just a girl. There hasn’t been anyone else.’

‘Oh, I thought …’ Jack trails off, embarrassed that his tongue has run away with him. Jim takes his meaning and laughs.

‘What, Muriel? God, no! I’d be lost without her, she’s practically raised Gwen as her own, but no, no. Her own husband passed away nearly twelve months ago now. Stan was gassed in the war and never really recovered. Hit her hard at the time, but she’s doing well now. Speak of the devil …’ he says, as the woman’s voice carries his name lightly into the room. He places the mug down on the table and asks Jack to excuse him. Jack listens to the stairs’ creak.

Alone, he lifts his hands from his lap and wraps them around the mug. The tea is still too hot and as he blows across its top, his breath rippling its surface, he is vaguely aware of the shuffling steps on the easing boards above him. The gingham curtain at the open window flutters on an invasive breeze sweetly scented by the jasmine growing so vibrantly outside that the white, star-shaped flowers press against the glass.

Jack thinks of the place he has left behind, the grotty back-to-backs within spitting distance of the yards, their alleys the playground of children with sunken cheeks and dead eyes and hand-me-down clothes. He thinks of his own kitchen with its nicotine-stained ceiling and the chipped saucer on the table overflowing with fag ash and the concertinaed butts left by his mother and her gentleman callers.

Looking around the homely clutter of the farm kitchen, with its cosy muddle of possessions, he realises that he has always yearned for a home like this and perhaps, he tortures himself, he might have achieved it – or something similar. But in one of those shabby back alleys that he knows so well, where rats fight with seagulls for the scraps scattered on cobbles slick with urine and spilt liquor, he threw away any chance he had of making a better life for himself. He threw away his chance of having any life at all.

The tea is cooler now and he gulps it down. Pushing back his chair, he carries his mug to the sink and rinses it under the tap before placing it upside down on the drainer. He glances up at the ceiling. All is still.

He hovers, cocking his ear to the hallway door. Detecting no signs of life, he carefully replaces his chair under the table and, with a wistful backward glance, he lifts the latch on the door and steps out into the fresh morning air.

Chapter Ten

Gwen

8th May 1945