‘All the same, I’d better get back to my aunt. Goodbye, and thank you for showing me the roof boss.’ The last words were over his shoulder; he was already heading for the Tube, half running, a thread of panic reeling him in. Was Vee at home this afternoon? No, he remembered, she was at her Thursday knitting circle – in which case, was she anywhere near an adequate shelter? He could hear the V-1 grinding into the distance, the engine still running – a deadly clockwork toy, wound up fifty miles away and chugging to a random end somewhere in the suburbs.

And as he jogged past the rubble dunes, the same old vision came sliding into his head, the final image of a recurring dream from which he regularly woke with a gasp: of himself sitting up in bed and looking out through a missing wall at a dawn sky, and realizing that the house had been bisected and that he was alone, poised on the edge of a vast, sandy crater.

‘Hoi!’

He turned and saw the warden waving the notebook in which he’d written his address. She shouted something else – ‘No’, or ‘I know!’ – and beckoned, but he shook his head and hurried onwards.

‘Biscuit, Mrs Overs?’

Vee peered into the tin and selected the last remaining custard cream. It disintegrated almost as soon as her teeth touched it, filling her mouth with crumbs and snowing a fine dust on to the half-knitted sock in her lap. She swallowed with difficulty, and washed the sludge down with tea.

‘I’ve heard that Peek Freans have changed their recipes,’ said Mrs Lunn, gingerly taking a digestive, ‘they’ve reduced the amount of shortening. They can’t get the lard any more.’

Mrs Claxton nodded. ‘I’ve heard that they’re using chicken fat instead of lard. How are your chickens, Mrs Overs?’

‘Doing quite nicely, thank you,’ said Vee. ‘I’m thinking of getting another White Leghorn.’

‘Laying regularly, are they?’

‘Most of them, yes.’

‘Of course, if they don’t lay, then they’re just an expense, aren’t they? I expect you have to decide whether to hold on to those that don’t lay.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Or whether they’d be better off in the oven.’