‘Poor soul,’ said Vee, automatically. She had met the real Margery Overs once, only hours before her death in a raid – had sat in her armchair and drunk her tea and now was unable to banish a vision of the large, nervous woman peering at her over the edge of a cloud, shocked and reproachful. ‘It’s having to swear. It’s having to put my signature. It wouldn’t just be me saying it any more, it’d be official, it’d be … you know …’

‘Fraud,’ said Noel, baldly.

‘Yes.’ Even the word was frightening. It made her nervous about giving out any personal information at all, however minor, in case she made a slip-up; the lodgers knew she was a widow, for instance, but not that she had a grown-up son, and when Mr Reddish had once enquired about Noel’s parentage she’d shrieked, ‘Oh, we don’t talk about that,’ even though the truth was that she had no idea, and neither had he, apart from the fact that he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket.

The front door closed on Miss Zawadska, and Vee slid the dishes into the sink, and took the apple charlotte from the oven. Back in the dining room, they were talking about church roofs, the conversation all staves and corbels.

‘I’d like to learn more about architecture,’ said Noel. ‘I think it would be rather interesting to be an architectural historian.’

‘That’s a real job, is it?’ asked Vee.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is it advertised? “Architectural historian wanted, usual rates apply”?’

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

‘Of course it matters. What are you going to eat when you grow up? Bricks?’

She caught Dr Parry-Jones’s eye and found herself reddening, again, and hoped it wasn’t the change – she’d heard it could start at forty, and she was nearly forty-one now. ‘We all have to earn a living,’ she said.

‘But we all also need to expand our minds,’ said Dr Parry-Jones, with mild reproof.

So there we have it, thought Vee, sneaking a bit of extra crust on to Noel’s plate – there we have it, the criteria for the next lodger: No pets, laundry extra, and knowledge of flying buttresses an advantage.

‘The pudding’s tip-top, Noel,’ said Mr Reddish.

Wardens’ Post 9 was a Nissen hut, sunk into the corner of Deddington Square Gardens and covered with a skin of concrete and a foot of earth. It had been built in 1938 and was now as well camouflaged as a commando’s hat, the top thick with brambles and wild raspberries. The sloping path that led to the entrance always made Winnie feel like Peter Rabbit entering his burrow.

‘Hi ho!’ she called before opening the door, just in case one of the other wardens was engaged in scratching his privates, or peeing into a bucket in the corner. In the event, only Addy was there, perusing the Sporting Life through half-moon spectacles. He had long silver hair, and the dreaming air of a Cambridge don, and had almost certainly been a burglar before the war.