Coming out on to the landing, she noticed that the blue tarpaulin outside Charlie’s room was gone. He’d painted his door white – a high-gloss finish – and now the purpling daylight took to it so readily it almost seemed like a French window. She’d been smelling paint fumes for the past few days and suddenly she had the explanation. The far end of the corridor was brighter, but its symmetry was lost. She had a foot on the top stair when she heard a handle turning. Charlie backed out of his door and shut it. Clean blue T-shirt. Hair slicked back. His face freshened with soap.

She cleared her throat and it startled him slightly. ‘I thought you were already down there.’

He spun round, amused. ‘No, miss. I just needed a quick smoke.’

‘The tarp is gone, I see.’

‘It is.’

‘So when’s the grand unveiling?’

He waved her over. ‘Right now, if you like.’

Behind him, in the window, afternoon was waning into evening. What was it about him that was different from the boy in baggy overalls who’d left her in the garage? Perhaps a new-found peace within himself, an inner confidence restored. She didn’t know. But as he stood there by his doorway, thick-browed, restful, waiting for an answer to his invitation, he looked so much like Arthur in his youth that she could feel the strangest dislocation from herself. He had the same involuntary pout, the same relentless motion to his eyes, as though observant of particulars that only he could see. And his carriage: borstal-trained into uprightness, yet so languid and serene.

From down below, the clank of cutlery, the smell of stewing apples. ‘Your sister’s gone to so much trouble,’ she said, remembering where she was again. ‘We don’t want it to get cold.’

*

It was only Joyce’s second try at making supper since she’d been with them; the first had been a small catastrophe of burnt Welsh rarebit and split custard. Tonight, there’d been tinned-salmon rissoles with mashed potatoes, swede and carrots, followed by stewed apples drowning in Carnation. It was clear that certain aspects of the recipes had been ignored, and the whole week’s butter ration had been squandered in the mash alone; but Florence knew that to complain about a person’s efforts in the kitchen was the most ungrateful sort of whinging. Her husband was uninterested in the artistry of food. It was fuel to him and nothing more. He’d shovelled in great forkfuls, making noises of encouragement, saying how well Joyce had done ‘to give us such a spread’, and Charlie had seemed pleased to find him so expansive in his praise. ‘Yeah, well done,’ he’d chimed in, ‘not half bad.’

Joyce had gazed at her across the table. ‘Was it up to snuff then, miss, or what?’ It was clear that her opinion was the only one she cared to hear. There was such a hopeful tone about her voice, a brittleness.

Arthur had said, ‘Let’s not leave the poor girl in suspense, Flo. Tell her.’