When he is done, he dabs his face dry with the towel draped over his shoulder and pulls on his shirt. Muriel has done her best to air it, but it still bears a faint trace of mothballs. He hopes Gwen will not notice. The buttons are fiddly; he refuses to put his fumbling down to nerves. He pushes the tails under his waistband and pulls up his braces. Turning up his collar he threads the borrowed tie around his neck and effects the neatest knot he can.

He shrugs on the suit jacket, leaving it loose, but on catching a glimpse of himself in the small mirror he thinks better of his decision and buttons it up. He dips his toothcomb into the ewer water and rakes it through his short-cropped hair. He wishes he had a drop of cologne.

Retrieving his wallet from the windowsill he thumbs through the notes tucked inside. Satisfied he has enough, he slips it into his inside pocket. His hand hovers over a small object sitting on the apple crate. He vacillates over whether to take it or not, but in the end his fingers close over the sculpted wood and his heart dares to lift. He drops it into his side pocket, strangely fortified by its featherlight presence. He pushes back his shirt cuff to check his watch, and realises it is time to go.

The back door is whipped open before he reaches it. Gwen stands framed in the open doorway, and for a moment he feels his balance waver. She wears a white full-skirted dress covered in the palest of pink roses. Her hair, washed that morning, has been wound around thick rollers all day, protected by a headscarf. Now, released and pinned, it falls in luxuriant rolls around her lightly rouged cheeks. Her broad smile wears a shimmer of lipstick. She dangles the car’s ignition key from satin-gloved fingers, while her other hand keeps the cardigan draped around her shoulders from slipping free.

‘Do you want to drive or shall I?’

Jack takes the key with a slow smile just as Jim appears behind her.

‘You scrub up well, Jack – that suit fits you right tidy.’

Jack tugs self-consciously at the jacket. ‘It does, thank you.’ But having seen Gwen, he wishes he was not wearing her father’s cast-offs, but a suit cut to fit him alone.

‘Be back by eleven, you’ve both got work tomorrow.’

‘Oh, Dad!’ Gwen spins around to her father, the petticoats beneath her skirt whispering their dismay. ‘The dance finishes at midnight. Just for once, can’t I stay to the end?’

‘Gwen, you know fair well that this house is locked up when I go to bed at ten thirty. I’m giving you leeway tonight as it is.’