There was another movement on the landing. A door snapped shut somewhere. It must’ve been the draught. He dragged hard on his ciggie and it gave his thoughts a rush. They’d looked so smart and proper on their way to dinner: Mr Mayhood in his best blue three-piece and his false arm tucked inside the pocket of his greatcoat; and Florence, who’d been dressed in something very different from his daydreams, which he realized now were stitched together from weak memories of films he’d watched with Lana Turner and Joan Bennett. Instead, she’d worn a brown tweed jacket with a velvet collar that cinched tightly at her waist. A matching skirt with pleats that flowed down past her knees. Warm pink lipstick and pearl earrings. Leather gloves. A furry little hat. She wouldn’t have looked out of place among his aunty’s friends at church. And still she wasn’t anything like them. Those women had no flesh beneath their clothes. No mystery or passion. They were graveyard statues, vacant in the head and heart. But Florence had a spirit and a shape. Her mind was always in a state of motion. She had pretty eyes, all right – they didn’t take much noticing – but it wasn’t till he’d seen her on the station platform back in August that he’d understood how much a woman’s eyes projected. Her nature, her desires – he could read them, even if he couldn’t quite translate them into words. He’d never kissed a girl or even held one in his arms. He’d only seen one naked in a dirty book that older lads had passed round school. So how come he was certain that he’d know exactly what to do with Florence Mayhood if she ever stood before him in the dark and opened up her gown?

He flicked his fag end out of the window, shut the sash. There was a noise of bathtaps running, and the pipes were humming in the walls, but not nearby. He went and knocked upon their bathroom door, which hung ajar. ‘You in there, Joy? I need the loo.’ No answer. ‘I’m coming in,’ he said, shielding his brow. But there was no one in the room. The tub sat dry and empty while he stood there, pissing in the pot. ‘Joy? Where are you?’

On the landing, he could hear the full gust of the taps, the tinkling of glassware. The Mayhoods’ bedroom door was closed, but he knew that she was in there. So he took a breath and turned the handle. No lights on inside. The curtains had been drawn. But there was a venting yellow glow from the en suite, writhing with steam. As the taps went off, he made out Joyce’s tuneless singing – ‘… and you pinned a rose of red on my coat of blue and said …’ A rage began to swell within him. ‘… that a soldier boy you’d wed, Nellie Dean.’

He barged in, saying, ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re not meant to be in here,’ and, seeing him, she sank below the thick white bubbles, spread an arm across her chest, a hand above her nether regions.