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play with other children, instead her parents played with her, board-games every night, jigsaw puzzles and reading books. They took her to the circus and the seaside, on walks and for boat rides, but all she really wanted was to be allowed to run around with other children, to join the games of rounders in the street, to walk along the high street and look in the shops on her own.
    Their house was a semi-detached one in Eltham, in a quiet, tree-lined avenue, and all their neighbours were as genteel and restrained as her parents. Anne’s father left for his office in the City at exactly eight every morning, wearing his bowler hat and dark suit and carrying his furled umbrella. She and her mother kissed him goodbye at the door and greeted him again when he came in at six in the evening. He would ask over tea how their day had been, and as young as seven or eight Anne could remember wondering why he always asked because each day was almost identical. Taken to school and collected later, half an hour’s piano practice, laying the tea table, and that was all.
    On summer nights she would lie awake in bed hearing children’s voices in the distance. She knew they came from the nearby council estate, and from what her mother said they were all under-fed and neglected, but it seemed to her that they had much more exciting lives than she did.
    At sixteen she was sent to a private secretarial college in Catford, and all at once she was travelling alone on the train each day and not having to wear a school uniform. That was almost enough in itself, but to her delight it led to making new friends that for once her parents approved of. Most of the other girls had parents who were wealthier and further up the social scale than her own, and she was invited home to tea and even to stay overnight at these girls’ homes. Ironically, her parents’ trust in professional people was misplaced, for they couldn’t really care less what their daughters got up to as long as they kept out of their hair. So while Mr and Mrs Hobbs smugly imagined Anne was mixing with the elite and being carefully chaperoned, she was in fact learning to put on make-up, making eyes at boys, trying alcohol, and out exploring the West End.
    It didn’t amount to anything very wicked, just wandering around giggling when boys tried to pick them up – the farthest they went was a few kisses before catching the last train home. But by the time Anne was seventeen it was autumn and too cold to spend evenings outside. She had soothed her parents into complete trust so that they no longer constantly checked up on her when she said she was staying with someone overnight. So when one of the girls suggested going dancing at the Empire in Leicester Square Anne was only too eager.
    It was just the third time she’d been to the Empire when she met Reg, and she fell for him right away. He was as opposite to the kind of man she knew her parents would approve of as it was possible to be – he was a builder not an office worker, his accent was strong South London, he wore a sharp, hand-tailored suit, the kind spivs wore, and his face looked as if it had been moulded by fists. When he took her in his arms to dance, for the first time in her life she suddenly knew what desire was. There was something animal and raw about him which made her feel all weak inside, and even though one of her friends drew her aside later and warned her he was too old for her and probably dangerous, she didn’t listen.
    He walked her and her friend Marianne to Charing Cross station later to catch the last train to Petts Wood. Just before the train came in, he caught her up in his arms and kissed her with such passion that she knew she’d keep the date they’d made for the following Monday, even if she had to lie to her parents to do it.
    Anne got up after Reg had left with the children. She ran a bath and held a cold flannel to her inflamed cheek while she waited for the bath to fill.
    ‘I’m only