Clearly it was the woman, although she still didn’t look at him. Her face remained fixed towards the carpet, her lips an empty O, as if her mouth were speaking despite the rest of her. He wished he could say something helpful but he couldn’t think what it might be. Maybe his silence or simply his hearing was enough, because she went on.

“Even when it’s sunny I can’t enjoy it. I think to myself, Oh yes, it’s nice now, but it’s not going to last. I’m either watching rain, or waiting for it.”

Harold refolded Queenie’s letter and returned it to his pocket. Something was bothering him about the envelope, but he couldn’t find in his mind what it was; besides, it seemed rude not to give the woman his full attention, since she was evidently talking to him.

She said, “I won a holiday to Benidorm once. All I had to do was pack my suitcase. But I couldn’t do it. They sent me the ticket in the post, and I never opened the envelope. Why is that? Why, when the chance to escape came, couldn’t I take it?”

Harold frowned. He thought of all the years he hadn’t spoken to Queenie. “Maybe you were afraid,” he said. “I had a friend once but it took me a long time to see that she was. It was actually rather funny because we first met in a stationery cupboard.” He laughed, remembering the scene, but the woman didn’t. It was probably difficult to imagine.

She stopped the foot that had been swinging like a pendulum, and studied her slipper as if she had not noticed it before. “One day I will leave,” she said. She looked across the drab room and caught Harold’s eye, and then at last she smiled.

♦

Contrary to David’s predictions, Queenie Hennessy had not turned out to be a socialist, feminist or lesbian. She was a stout, plain-looking woman with no waist and a handbag tucked over her forearm. It was well known that Mr Napier considered women to be little more than ticking hormone bombs. He gave them jobs as barmaids and secretaries and expected in return the odd favour in the back of his Jaguar. So Queenie marked a new departure at the brewery, and one that Mr Napier would not have made, had anyone other than her applied for the job.