As her brother took it over to his desk, it made a pleasant, rippling sound. He was told to stick it carefully on to his board and smooth it flat. ‘The lazy draughtsman would trace over the original. I always say it’s better to redraw. That way, you can spot mistakes before they cost you anything. If you want to, you can borrow my good pens to ink it later on.’

‘You mean he’s got to do it all again from scratch?’ She went and slapped her brother in between the shoulder blades. ‘Ha ha. Unlucky, mouse.’

‘I don’t mind,’ her brother said. ‘I’ve got to learn this stuff.’

Mr Mayhood took the last slurp of his coffee. ‘Well, be glad it’s just a root cellar. Wait until you’re doing masters for a concert hall. You’ll want to delegate the task to some assistants of your own. Now, here we go – let’s get a north point on it and a scale …’

She was relieved to stand behind her brother for a while, doing nothing except watching him put lines precisely on a sheet, clicking the mechanics of his pencil when his lead wore down. He had powers of concentration that she wasn’t born with. He made the job of draughting look as simple as a sneeze. Every mark he put down seemed to slide like butter on the surface of the tracing paper – it was gentle, measured and exact – and his skilfulness brought out approving nods from Mr Mayhood, who kept lifting his specs up and down to study what was forming. It wasn’t long before the ground plan was drawn out and he was starting on the elevations. Mr Mayhood took a breath and said, ‘Keep going, Charlie. Looking good,’ and walked off to his table.

If she’d had only a quarter of the talent God had blessed her brother with, then maybe she’d have found it easier to see a brighter future coming for her, too. But she could barely muster any interest in the progress of her work, because she knew – no matter how much effort she put into it – she’d never meet the standards of a real architect. At the moment, she was coasting on the Mayhoods’ faith and patience. ‘Don’t get flustered. You’ll soon get the knack – it’s tricky,’ Florence kept on saying. And, to his credit, Mr Mayhood might’ve been particular about the way he liked things done, but he hadn’t once got angry at her clumsiness or irritated by her blunders. It was as though, to him, the signs of failure were like pimples on her face – a dreadful sight, but temporary.

He’d given her the greenhouse project to complete and she was doing what she could to satisfy him. Maybe, by his thinking, if she managed to produce a single line worth praising, it would feel like progress to them both. But even though it was a very basic structure – an even-span design that he’d sketched out for her with help from Mr Hollis – she couldn’t get her mind to focus. Three different views were needed – front, side, rear – and drawing elevations was a fussy job, more like geometry than painting. Mr Mayhood had typed up a sheet of information to explain dimensions and materials. So, while her brother got on with the root cellar, she was left to make her drawings, slowly, with the constant sense that she was going backwards. She’d already burned her way through an eraser and a lump of India rubber. By now, the paper on her board looked grey and craggy.