Through an open door she could hear a radio, and laughter. Probably It’s That Man Again, or some other skit, she guessed. She stopped for a moment beside the skeleton that had once been their home. The front wall was almost gone, and the slates were off, but the staircase was intact. Paneless windows stared down at her like sightless eyes. She had a sudden vision of her mother, much younger, sitting on the sills to clean the outsides of those sash-windows, and the memory was so vivid she said: ‘Mam.’ The pavement sparkled with glass splinters that had had the benefit of her own smeary attempts at cleaning only a week or so ago. It hardly mattered now. All those days of hard work, washing and ironing curtains and running around trying to do everything to her mother’s liking – it had all been labour in vain. If only she’d known. The piano was smashed, its strings everywhere. It would take a bit of tuning now, she thought, and for some reason that struck her as funny.
