Finetta had just topped up her own cup with milk, but she swung the milk jug away too quickly, without looking properly, and the lip caught the edge of the cup, sending it clattering sideways onto its saucer, and a cascade of tea onto the biscuits. She went into a commotion of catching crockery with both hands while Ian stood silently by, but all Enid could hear was the closed file, screaming at her from the bed.

She looked up at Ian and didn’t understand. “You’re going? Haven’t you come to tell me?”

Finetta seemed to suddenly run out of steam. She left the sodden biscuits and the saucer, her tea half drunk, half spilled. She stood up too. “Tell you what, mother?”

“The address.” Enid struggled to her feet. “The plot. Where he’s buried. Your father had it. He knew. And it’s no good accusing. Do you see? We all—”

Finetta said, “You’re getting tired, Mother.”

“I wanted to go, but she’d have been there. I didn’t know who would have been there.”

“Shall I bring you more shortbreads next week?” Finetta went over to the wardrobe and inspected the dresses.

“A funeral’s no place for a reunion,” said Enid. But they were leaving. They were leaving with their judgement intact and she hadn’t had a chance.

Finetta closed the wardrobe door. “If there’s anything else you need, you can leave a note in the office.”

Enid looked down at her feet, so old, so worn out, squashed into unpleasant shoes. “You can’t come here and accuse. I won’t be accused.”

“Shall we say goodbye?” said Ian.

“I couldn’t go. Do you see? I tried but I simply couldn’t. Joan put him there. Not me.”

“I don’t want to talk about Fagus,” said Ian.

But Enid carried on regardless, set on a path, a desperate scramble up the hill, the boulder toppling in her hands. “Nobody could have stopped what happened. It was an accident. It didn’t make any difference to anything. I had to keep fighting. I had nothing.” She stared at her son and daughter, but all she saw was fear and shame shaped in the colour of their eyes. “She offered me a way out. I didn’t know I’d never see you.”

Ian took one step towards her. “She didn’t offer it you. You sold me. Did you ever think I’d want to see you again?”

Why had it not occurred to her that Joan would tell him? It had. She’d shut it out.