3
‘I know the house is going to rack and ruin, my lovey, I know it is, but what can I do?’
Eileen Totterbridge poured Sam a mug of her thick, bracing tea, added milk, sweetened it the way she knew he’d always liked it and passed it across the kitchen table. Sam leaned his broad shoulders against the high-backed kitchen chair, raised his mug to her and sipped. Nectar! He never felt he was really home again until he’d been rejuvenated by Mrs Totty’s tea and entertained by her conversation. She was just the same, too, his lovely Mrs Totty, whom he’d known all his life. Burbling on, comforting, kind, her round face concerned as she tried to excuse the deteriorating condition of 16 Kelsey Road, even though it wasn’t remotely her responsibility.
‘You can’t do any more than you do,’ he reassur
