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didn’t want to find Mr Gardiner’s jokes funny; he was keeping his heart safe and honourable for his real father.
    Mr Gardiner’s bald patch and his round glasses glinted in the electric light each time he bent forward to his soup spoon. Ralph studied the solid man at the head of the table as if for the first time. Mr Gardiner didn’t sit straight to the table; his legs were crossed, the chair pushed out to one side to make room for his large shoe to tap up and down in the air, a gap of skin and sock garter showing.
    They finished the soup that had been served in huge, flat bowls and sat in a lull of silence. Mr Gardiner chewed at the edge of a fingernail, those long, narrow eyes quietly spying around the room. The door banged open and a girl he hadn’t seen before appeared.
    â€˜You want the meat now, missis?’
    â€˜Oh yes, we’re quite finished. And it’s “Mrs Gardiner” not “missis”, Consuelo. Please try and remember.’
    Consuelo was dressed in an orange crepe dress that stretched over her rounded chest, a white apron tied round her waist.
    Ralph could feel Mama not saying things as Consuelo leaned across him to gather up the plates. Consuelo’s skin was the colour of an apricot. He found himself wondering if her arms might feel soft like a fruit if he were to press the downy skin. He caught a burst of warm odour, ripe and salty as she stretched over him to grab the empty breadbasket. The scent stayed in the air when she left the room.
    â€˜I really must mention washing to her,’ Mama murmured.
    Mama lifted the lid from the tureen. Mr Gardiner leaned forward towards the thick aroma of chorizo sausage with paprika and beans. Mama ladled it out onto soup plates.
    Ralph was not hungry, but the familiar smell of spiced meat and roasted tomatoes seemed to sum up all that he had missed over the past few months, and he felt his throat tighten. He made himself eat, to make sure he did not begin to cry. There was a clatter of knives and forks, the occasional question from Mama, but tiredness had begun to creep up through Ralph’s body.
    After a dessert of figs and cheese Mr Gardiner got up.
    â€˜You’re going out?’ said Mama lightly.
    â€˜Sorry, sweetest. Very boring. Have to see someone at the club.’
    â€˜Well then, if you must.’
    He made Ralph jump when he passed by and pressed a big flat hand on his shoulder, a gesture that was comforting, but weighted with the man’s strength.

    Mama ran a bath for Ralph, and afterwards, while he was buttoning up his pyjamas, she came in and asked him if he would perhaps like to change his name to Ralph Gardiner now.
    â€˜It’s your choice, darling one,’ Mama said, her face red and moist from the steamy bathroom. His pyjamas felt too damp and clammy. She helped him button them up.
    He was horrified by her suggestion: he was a Colchester, related to all the old-fashioned people in the photos in Flora and Cecily’s house. His father was descended from one of the kings of England. He was of the same blood as his father.
    He shook his head, his eyes wide.
    She did not say anything more about it, but he could feel that it was one of those things – like not making a success of school and having to come home – where his mother would not force him, and she would take his side, but still . . . He could feel the disappointment in the humid bathroom, the sense that he had somehow failed.
    â€˜Well, at least you might like to stop calling him Mr Gardiner now. He thought perhaps you could call him Uncle Max.’
    â€˜If he’d like me to.’
    â€˜He would, darling. Very much.’
    Ralph fell asleep in the high bed with its hard mattress and thick linen sheets. He dreamed tense, inescapable dreams, a volley of bangsgoing round and round his head, desk lids slamming down, a class of jeering boys clapping. He woke up gasping, and realised that the bangs and