A draught whistled along, catching her at shin height. She lowered herself onto the next step until she was sitting down, one hand still holding the rail, her knees hunched together. It felt like the turn in the stairs down from the nursery at Strachur. She hadn’t been back to her mother’s house in Scotland since the whole terrible mess began. Crouched, knees bent, she could be twenty-eight again, halfway down the first flight, not daring to go further, not daring to go back. I can’t see. Those had been his first words after the blood had stopped pouring and they’d bandaged him up. She’d wanted to smother him.

She wouldn’t be accused. With one hand, she pulled herself onto her feet, her stick in the other, leant against the wall and looked around the corner. The door at the far end opened and one of the nurses came smiling out, throwing a comment behind her. She didn’t notice Enid peeking around the bend. The nurse disappeared off down another flight of stairs. On the next step, the handrail swapped to the other wall. Enid made a grab for it.

Why had she chosen to be a Christian Scientist? Why not a Humanist or a Pantheist, or a Presbyterian like her mother? She could have lain down on that foul green carpet and refused to move; she could have said her heart was breaking. They would have had to call a doctor. They could have taken her away from here. But she hadn’t chosen it. She remembered now. It had chosen her.

She walked slowly along the passage to the office.

“Enid.” Mandy opened the door. Mandy had moles on her left cheek in the shape of two stars and a crescent moon. She caught Enid’s arm. “Do you need something?” All the nurses wore blue uniforms and tan stockings and flat shoes. Enid looked for Carol, but her bulk wasn’t filling any of the chairs. There was Mandy with her moons and stars, the girl with the poor complexion, and Dawn, who was almost as fat as Carol.

Enid said, “I need to make a telephone call.” On the steps of the Basilica de San Lorenzo.

Dawn’s uniform strained at her thighs, her calves squashed against each other under the chair. The room smelled of sweet perfume and cigarettes. Mandy walked Enid to an easy chair by the window. “Who do you need to call?”

It was his fault, Douglas’s fault, and Joan’s. “My daughter.” She held onto the edge of the desk on which cups crowded amongst paper clips, a stapler, a box of pens. They’d made it happen. They’d both betrayed her.

Dawn pulled a drawer out from below the desk. It revealed files in manila folders.

Enid said, “Is Carol not here?”

“Carol’s off till this afternoon,” said Mandy.