By contrast, her actual neighbours in the Vale of Health were a snooty bunch who seemed to consider that she’d dragged down the whole tone of the road by opening a boarding house. Sometimes she was tempted to hang the washing out of the window, just to annoy them.

‘And my sister-in-law,’ continued Mrs Rice, ‘that’s the one who’s married to my brother, not my husband’s sister, who couldn’t come because of her phlebitis – my sister-in-law—’

‘Hark!’ said Vee, lifting her head; the tiny, wicked noise was like a distant dentist’s drill.

Mrs Rice paused with her mouth open and Mrs Arnold said, ‘Oh no, oh no …’ and the sound of the doodlebug grew from a far-off buzz to a nasty overhead roar, and then, abruptly, stopped.

Mrs Arnold got under the table first. They were in the verger’s room at the chapel, a plywood lean-to about as substantial as a bed-sheet over a line, but the table was two-inch oak and there were suddenly seven of them beneath it, including Mrs Aldermayer, who couldn’t normally stand up without two people helping. Mrs Lunn was saying the Lord’s Prayer and Vee was counting in her head because Noel had told her that the average length of time between the engine cutting out and the flying bomb actually hitting the ground was twelve seconds, but she’d only got as far as ‘eight Mesopotamia’ when the bomb hit.

There was a tremendous bang, the windows went and something hit the tabletop with a smash.

Mrs Arnold screamed.

‘Lampshade,’ said Vee, as pale pink shards pattered to the floor.

‘Well, if that’s all,’ said Mrs Rice, shakily. ‘Where did that go down, do you think? Rosslyn Hill?’

‘I’ll go and find out, shall I?’ said Vee, unfolding herself. As she picked her way through the glass she heard Mrs Arnold say, ‘I wish I could be as calm as Mrs Overs,’ and Mrs Rice replying, ‘Well, she’s been through it and out the other side, hasn’t she?’ and involuntarily, Vee raised a hand and stroked the scar that ran in a curve beneath her right cheekbone. It was true, in a way; she’d been under one bomb, and she knew, with inexplicable but absolute certainty, that she wouldn’t be under another – she’d have bet a hundred pounds on it, if she’d had a hundred pounds. One of her lodgers, Mr Reddish, had sailed through the Great War without a scratch, and he’d told her that he’d known from the start that he wouldn’t get touched, though he could never sleep afterwards for thinking of all the chums who’d gone west. Vee, too, often woke before dawn and watched the clock, though it wasn’t bombs she was worrying about.

Outside, a plume of dust was lifting above the rooftops of Haverstock Hill and she could hear an ambulance bell. ‘Bottom of Belsize Lane,’ said someone. One old lady already had her broom out, pushing a pile of glass towards the gutter. ‘It’s the mess I can’t stand,’ she said, catching Vee’s eye. ‘I never liked mess, and now it’s just filth and dust, morning till night. I can never get things straight.’