The butler carried her case into the hall. She breathed in the familiarity of that place – the chandelier that shone high above her, the black and white tiles that glistened beneath her feet. Her shoes made a shooshing sound as she mounted the stairs, her hand slipped quietly on the bannister rail. As they reached the first landing she said, “Is no one here?”

The butler walked two steps ahead of her. “Miss Campbell and Miss Dansey are out for the evening. I understand your mother is in Scotland.” He began the second flight and she followed, echoes of her childhood in the walls around her: running down, in a game of hide and seek, going up in fear of the portraits at night, descending in her wedding gown to her father and brother, who’d waited in the hall.

The butler stopped outside a bedroom on the third floor. “May I arrange some supper for you?” He put her case down, opened the door and stood back to let her pass.

She walked into the bedroom that used to be hers. “Tell cook to send something up.”

She heard Joan crashing about in the middle of the night. There was laughter, then a shut door.

❦

At breakfast the next morning Joan didn’t look up as Enid came in. She wore a pale silk kimono dressing gown over red velvet pyjamas, a dragon reared over her shoulder. “Have you had a nice trip?”

Enid stared straight ahead. It was bad enough coming down to Joan in a house of memories, let alone dealing with her sister’s face, set as if she owned the place. She wasn’t about to go explaining anything to her. She’d slept badly; she’d lain awake for hours, wondering what on earth was going on. “Where is Douglas?”

Pat came in. Her dressing-gown cord trailed across the floor, and the bells on her slippers tinkled with each step as she moved between the hot plates, taking an egg and three slices of bacon. The silver lids of the jam pots glinted in the sun; the sideboard was a palace of fine china and starched, monogrammed napkins.

Pat, plate in hand, made her way slowly to a seat at the shining oval table. “Morning, all.” She sat down with a sigh.

Enid hadn’t realised how different she’d become until that moment, in the breakfast room, watching Pat’s steady descent to the table. The opulence, the shine, the grandeur of people with nothing to do – sat amongst it in her plain brown skirt, hand-dyed cotton shirt and hair in a simple twist, she was a twig blown in through the window. She pulled the cuff of her sleeve straight. “Why is mother in Scotland already?”

Joan said, “She lives there.”

“Since when?”

“Since years ago, I don’t know. When was it, Pat? Last summer?”