He asked, ‘What happened at the post office before?’

‘I learned a thing or two.’ She sat down, straightening her skirt. ‘They said there is a regional manager – Mr Crottee. In his fifties. Married with four kids, and bald. Does that sound right to you?’

He shook his head. ‘I told you, she gets secretive about this stuff. The details never quite add up. It’s all because the fellas who she likes don’t tend to stick with her. So she’ll save a bit of face by telling you as little as she can. That’s Joyce. She’s hard to fathom out.’ What he didn’t say was that there’d been a time when he’d believed she was a prostitute. A dreadful thing to level at her and he still regretted saying it aloud. There’d been plenty of good reasons for suspecting it – he’d known enough about her circumstances, things she’d said to him, what he’d observed. But, really, he’d been nudged towards a false conclusion by a lot of gossip from his aunty and her church friends as they’d sat in their front room with fruit-loaf slices and Earl Grey. His sister had denied it – and so earnestly that he’d found himself believing her. True candour was a rare event in Joyce’s life, but he could always recognize it when he saw it.

Florence crossed her arms and said, ‘Till five o’clock. No longer. Supper is her duty and she knows the rota. If she isn’t at that range by five, I’m phoning Mr Kimball. Understand, it’s not a punishment – I want to know that she’s all right.’

‘Whoever she’s been with, he isn’t worth her time – or yours. I’m sure of that.’

Mr Mayhood was still fussing with the site plan. ‘I think that’s Charlie saying we should get on with our day. And, after all, he knows her best.’

And so they pressed on with their competition entry. He was glad for the diversion of the project. How much longer could he let his sister do this to him? In the throes of work, his mind would float away from her. She wasn’t in the marks he put on paper. She could never stand inside the buildings he imagined, spoil their shapes, though she could break his concentration if he let his thoughts run off in her direction. Wasn’t that what she was always telling him? Protect yourself. Be no one’s ha’penny. And drawing was the only thing he’d ever known how to control.

On this score, he’d learned so much already from the Mayhoods. They never quarrelled when it came to architecture. They were so invested in each other’s talents, sympathetic to each other’s strengths and flaws, and it was always clear which one of them was leading on a project. Yesterday, while Florence had refined her concept sketches, he and Mr Mayhood had stood watching at her shoulder. In an hour, the halls of residence had found their form: a low, wide structure with a channel through its middle where the main staircase would be, a glass and steel chamber with curved walls. It had looked, from that initial sketch, as though a tulip had been darned with zigzag stitches. Today, he stood in silence behind Mr Mayhood, seeing him enhance the concept she’d begun, exploring basic elevations freehand, using charcoal, then fashioning another sequence more exactly, using pencil, with his clamp appliance on the T-square.