Alice tore the page from the newspaper, folded it and thrust it into the sleeve of her uniform. She straightened her cap and smoothed down her apron and emerged into the hallway to find her eyes brimming with tears and a lump in her throat because she had thought of her mother who had been dead and gone these last five years but who had come back to her all in a rush, so that the loss of her, just as though it were happening all over again, was almost too much to bear.

But no one noticed because Mrs Dunlevy’s guests were departing.

Indeed, Mrs Dunlevy had about her the look of someone held together by tissue paper. But all she said was, ‘Alice, please inform Mrs Flynn the almond cake was a little stale.’

‘Yes, madam.’ Alice stood at the front door and handed each of the ladies their coat and hat and gloves and mufflers, and Mrs Pyke smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Alice,’ Mrs Rothe took Mrs Dunlevy’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze as though she were at the funeral of someone she did not know very well, and Miss Dempsey, whose brother had once placed a coin in Alice’s palm, left first because she had just seen a cab go past and wished to be the one to secure it.

‘Gone, have they?’ said Mrs Flynn standing over a great steaming dish at the stove and waving the steam from her face.

‘Yes, Mrs Flynn, and Mrs Dunlevy said to tell you the almond cake was very nice.’

‘Nice, indeed!’ said Mrs Flynn, who thrived not on compliments but on grievances. ‘What is that you have, Alice?’ she added as a sheet of newsprint fluttered to the floor and lay at Alice’s feet.

‘’Tis nothing,’ cried Alice, snatching at it, but Mrs Flynn, who had earlier complained that her knees were gone, had already stooped to retrieve it and was peering short-sightedly at the tiny newsprint. She turned the page over and over again, waiting for its mysteries to reveal themselves to her. After a lengthy perusal, she placed the page on the table without a word, an advertisement for a revolutionary corset design uppermost and, when she saw this, primly turning the sheet the other side up. Mrs Flynn had lived a hard life in an unforgiving city and was not easily shocked, but an advertisement for a ladies’ undergarment was a step too far.