‘What’s that for?’ I asked. There was a metal plastic thing standing on the floor by the yellow sofa that came up into a bubble with a knob on top and looked like a spinning top on a long leg. She pressed it down and it span inside itself like a flying saucer.

‘Ashtray,’ she said, wrinkling her nose up. ‘That’s a dirty habit. I don’t allow it in my house.’

‘Oh,’ I said, and looked round at all the knitted and nylon things, flowers and vases, the framed photos of everyone looking younger, untouched chairs wrapped in shop plastic, the plumped, patterned cushions looking spotless, and nothing needing to be fixed. I looked back at her to see what else wasn’t allowed, but she spread out her hand and waved the duster round the room and said, ‘Now you see, this is my living and dying room, and the man promising me we going back home before it could catch me getting old.’

I must have looked like I had my mouth open because she said, ‘You have a sweet tooth? So have I,’ and lifted the lid off a bowl with some blue and yellow birds on it and gave us both a pink boiled sweet wrapped in see-through cellophane twists. ‘Just you and me,’ she said with a wink, and pulled both ends of hers so it unravelled neatly and popped it in her mouth.

‘You can keep yours,’ she said. ‘Just pop it in your mouth when you get homesick.’

I didn’t get homesick, I kept it in my pocket, but Wilf wouldn’t come in with me. I’d been to his house but he didn’t want to come in mine.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘He’s got scars. They’re ugly,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Scary. I’m not going in.’ He was still backing away from me, shaking his head and getting ready to run – his feet were clever in the turn, he dropped his knees low.

‘Oi!’ I shouted.

‘Haven’t you seen?’ and he stopped to draw his fingers in a claw across his cheek. ‘Like a tiger’s scratched him. See ya!’ And he ran off.

‘Is that why he’s afraid to come in? He thinks we keep tigers?’

‘No, Mum,’ I said, ‘just saying, he has got scars, hasn’t he? How’d he get ’em?’

‘You’ve no sense sometimes. Go and ask him.’