‘Dad, you came.’ Hannah jumped up with a scrape of her chair and ran over to Craig standing in the doorway. He held a bunch of red lilies and had a demure expression. Hannah put her arms around him and squeezed, and he hugged her back.

‘Hi, Angel,’ he said.

Hannah released him and he looked towards the table and nodded. ‘Jen.’

‘Craig.’

He walked into the room, offering the lilies. ‘These are for you, Dorothy, I’m sorry about Jim. Hannah told me and I wanted to pay my respects. He was a good man.’

He glanced at Jenny and she rolled her eyes. Damn it, he still looked good. He never seemed to thicken around the middle like most guys his age, and the flecks of grey through his hair made him look better somehow. Maybe being a dad again to little Sophia was keeping him young, or maybe it was the sex with Fiona, the blonde dynamo who was now the second Mrs McNamara. That was the most annoying thing, that he’d cheated on Jenny with someone the same age, a diminutive Reese Witherspoon type, go-getting and ambitious.

Enough. She resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. It was ten years ago and he’d always been a good dad to Hannah. None of which made it easier.

‘They’re beautiful,’ Dorothy said, accepting the flowers and a kiss on the cheek. She fetched a vase from a cupboard. ‘Stay for a drink.’

Craig looked at Jenny. ‘I don’t want to impose.’

Dorothy poured water into the vase and arranged the lilies. Jenny could smell the flowers, powerful and musky. Lilies always struck her as masculine.10

‘Stay, Dad,’ Hannah said.

Craig looked at Jenny with his eyebrows raised, waiting for her to say OK.

She swept a magnanimous hand across the table. ‘Sit.’

When he first told Jenny he was having an affair and leaving her, it almost killed her trying to stay civil in front of Hannah. But she was damned if she was going to let hate and bitterness eat her up, and she didn’t want all that toxic shit infecting her daughter. As the years went by it became easier, much to Jenny’s surprise. You could get used to anything, it seemed. But she still had to bite her tongue, stop herself becoming the vicious harpy, the wronged woman. Of course, that let him off the hook.

Dorothy put the lilies on the table then got a whisky tumbler from the cupboard and poured Craig a drink.

‘So when’s the funeral?’ Craig said, sipping.

Hannah frowned. ‘We just did it.’

‘When?’

‘Now, in the back garden.’

Craig look confused. ‘Wait, that’s the smoke over the house?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Just us, no service.’

‘Are you allowed to cremate folk here?’

Hannah shook her head as Dorothy sat down and refilled her glass.