The house was dark and quiet and smelled of apple pie and damp carpet. She switched on the light, its small velvet shade illuminating the cream walls and burgundy hall runner, as well as the blistered wallpaper and the watermark that crept across the ceiling like a large ink stain. The décor was dilapidated due to financial constraint rather than neglect, not that any builders would have been available in wartime even if they’d been affordable. This house might be razed to the ground any day if God desires it, her mother said whenever Alice complained about how depressing it was. They had made some effort to cheer it up with new curtains and flowerboxes for the windows, but it didn’t feel like home without her father and brother. She’d often been tempted to take lodgings with girls in the city but couldn’t bring herself to leave her mother alone, and now it was too late for that.

Alice piled her belongings on the kitchen table, grabbed the book she’d brought home as a gift and went in search of Ruth. “Mum, where are you?” she called.

Light spilled from beneath her bedroom door, and as Alice pushed it open, the pink rosebud walls, the metal bedframe and then the dresser came into view. Her mother’s wiry figure was standing on tiptoes on a chair. It was strange to see her in a childlike pose: tartan skirt hitched up, cream sweater stretching across her shoulder blades, head arched backward as her hands probed inside the tall cupboard. Alice didn’t want to make her jump, so she waited until Ruth had heaved the suitcase down.

“Alice!” she said, twisting round. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You should’ve let me do that.”

“I don’t think so.” Ruth picked up the chair and set it back down in front of the dresser. “Not in . . .”

“Not in my condition?”

Ruth pursed her lips rather than smiled as Alice had hoped she might.

“What are you doing anyway? And why haven’t you lit the fire? It’s so cold.”

“I’m helping you pack,” Ruth replied as she opened a drawer and lifted out an armful of clothes.

“I can do that, but we don’t need to pack yet.”

“Yes, we do. You’re leaving in the morning.”

“The morning! That’s not what we agreed.” The conversation had been some weeks ago, but Alice remembered it clearly. They’d been in the garden, and she’d been quite definite that she wouldn’t go until after the holidays.

“Yes, it is. Besides, there’s not much coal left.”

Alice shivered at the thought of spending more nights in three sets of pajamas and her overcoat, but she wasn’t ready to leave yet either. And it worried her that Ruth hadn’t remembered their discussion. Was she becoming ill again?