“I asked if you wanted to change into something clean. You’ve been in that since Saturday.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose so.”

“It’s time we put that one in the wash.” She held out her hand for Enid to stand up.

“Can’t you do it later?” She couldn’t just now, she was too tired.

Carol put the comb on the sink. Enid stared out of the window. Twenty-five years and nothing. Not a visit, a phone call, a note. His father had died, and of course she hadn’t gone to the funeral – it would have been improper. There was no knowing who might have been there. Joan would have been there. A grave was no place for a reunion and anyway, she’d heard of it too late. She could have gone to her mother’s funeral, she supposed. Ian would have been there, too. She’d wavered over that one. Despite everything, it would have been perfectly correct. That galleon ship, that empress of duty had done what mothers the world over did when an heir was lost – she’d drifted and grown old, become suggestible and weary of the load. But Joan would have been there too, slipping into their mother’s shoes, and Finetta had talked Enid out of it. She’d said Scotland was a long way to go.

“You’ll want something nice, won’t you?” said Carol. She stood behind Enid, her hands lightly touching her shoulders.

Enid stared at her reflection. Their mother wouldn’t have wanted her at her graveside anyway. She would have seen it as an offence, and Joan would have agreed absolutely. They’d been an army of two, allied in everything, and the thought of being shamed again, even after their mother was dead, had been too much. As she’d expected, no letter from the executors had arrived, no summons to hear the Will. Nothing but an aside from Finetta: that the funeral had been quite pleasant, although it had rained.

Carol patted a stray strand of Enid’s hair into place. “I’ll get you the mirror.”

She’d had no one to fight for her, that was the thing. No one to hold her hand, talk her round or give her reason to think sensibly. Ian’s father had cowered and done as he was told. He’d had no reason to defend her, but was there no such thing as compassion? The men she’d loved were dead – her brother, her father. Sometimes she was grateful that her father hadn’t lived to see his family fall apart. Her mother had told her once that it was Enid’s marriage that had killed him. Some words, once uttered, could never be forgiven.