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descriptions. Mr Paganotti
     had a large number of elderly relatives living and dying in England, and hardly a month went by without his becoming the chief
     beneficiary of yet another will. A few choice articles of furniture he kept for his mansion near Windsor. Some things he sent
     to the salerooms; others he stored in the washroom, or upstairs on the first floor. The rest, the debris of a lifetime, he
     placed in boxes on the factory floor for the benefit of his workers. There were numerous pyjamas and nightgowns, golfing
     shoes in two tones, yellowing stays and white-flannel trousers and striped waistcoats mouldywith damp. There was a notice pinned to the wall, stating in Italian that Mr Paganotti was delighted if his employees found
     use for the contents – ‘Please put 2p in the tea-caddy placed for the purpose.’ Rossi emptied the caddy every two days in
     case Patrick the van driver was tempted to help himself to the proceeds.
    Brenda was thirsty. She tried sipping Maria’s wine, but it gave her an ache at the back of her jaw.
    ‘Oooh,’ she wailed, ‘it’s horrible.’
    Maria, still rummaging for shoes, cackled with laughter and threw ties, and undergarments of incredible dimensions, on to
     the floor.
    The machine Mr Paganotti had provided for hot drinks was out of order. When Brenda inserted her metal token and pressed the
     button marked ‘Cocoa’, a thin stream of soup trickled into her cup. Patrick, come in from the street to be out of the wind,
     smiled at her sympathetically. He never knew what to do with himself in the lunch hour – the men he worked with couldn’t
     understand a word he uttered, and Rossi treated him with suspicion, seeing he was Irish, following him about the factory
     in case he slipped a bomb beneath the cardboard boxes and blew them all to pieces.
    ‘Look at that,’ said Brenda. ‘It’s never cocoa.’
    ‘The machine’s busted,’ he told her, giving it an enormous clout with his fist. He had large hands, discoloured with brown
     freckles, and badly bitten nails. One ear was slightly swollen where he had banged it falling down the steps of the Princess
     Beatrice the previous night, and there was a cut on his lip.
    ‘Everything breaks,’ said Brenda, ‘All sorts of thingsbreak down these days. Electric kettles and washing machines and telephones.’
    ‘You’re right at that,’ he agreed, jingling the coins in the pocket of his overalls and nodding his cropped head. He would
     have suited long hair, Brenda thought. It would have toned down his ears and covered his neck, which was broad and mottled
     with old adolescent scars.
    ‘Our toilet’s been broken for three weeks,’ she told him.
    ‘We can’t get a plumber. The landlady’s tried.’
    ‘Is that a fact? Broken is it?’
    ‘Plumbers don’t live here any more,’ explained Brenda, echoing what Freda had told her. ‘It’s on account of the high rents.
     Plumbers can’t afford to live. It’s the same with window cleaners,’ she added.
    ‘I’ll fix it for you,’ he said. And too late she realised what she had done.
    ‘Oh no really, there’s no need,’ she protested.
    But he wouldn’t be put off. ‘I’ll be glad to. I’m good at the plumbing. Will I bring the tools round after work?
    ‘It’s not my toilet,’ said Brenda. ‘I’m not sure that the landlady—’
    ‘I’ll fetch the wherewithal from me lodgings and be round when I’m finished.’
    ‘You’re very kind,’ said Brenda feebly, and returned with her beaker of soup to the bench. She stared at a bottle of Chateau
     Neuf du Pape and dreaded what Freda would say. She could almost hear her – ‘You did what? You asked that lout from the bogs
     of Tipperary to mend our loo?’ She wondered if she could sneak him upstairs without Freda knowing, or the landlady for that
     matter.Perhaps she could persuade him to wrap a duster round the end of his hammer.
    Freda was not enjoying being off work. She hadn’t the money to go down