She gripped the back of the chair, but her mother didn’t move. The ring that was supposed to be hers was barrelling away from her; she could feel it as she pictured Ian relaxed at the wheel, the emerald, the diamonds and gold mildly heavy in his pocket. It was speeding away in the warm, closed world of the Aston, being taken to a place unreachable. That was a wall she couldn’t climb, a chasm she couldn’t jump; Ian did as he liked, she couldn’t ask for it back, it was not what one did. It would be gone and not mentioned, not allowed to be mentioned by anyone but him. The way he’d picked it up, the way he’d squirrelled it away with the kind of command that men call self-possession. How he’d stood by as the milk crashed and the tea went flying. Those seconds of fated action – what if she’d spoken then, if she’d made a scene, if she’d said all the things she’d been bottling up all these years? But no. Women laid traps. Women laid in wait, and if they came home empty handed, it was nobody’s fault but their own.

Not for a moment had she thought she wouldn’t have it; those precious stones that had defined her mother’s bones, had defined Finetta too. She’d imagined putting it on, seeing it on her finger for the first time and feeling, like magic, herself step into line with the generations of women behind her; the ring, an emblem of belonging unrealised. She hadn’t known she’d always be without, that her mother’s endless hatred really would have no end. But it was gone. It was speeding away from her, already out of reach, and her mother appeared to be sleeping.

She unwrapped the quilt and put it on a chair while she straightened and refolded the tissue paper – she’d use it again. There was no need to waste it. It would do for Christmas wrapping to her daughter. She’d bought her a necklace that she’d found at a Christmas fair. She was going to mail it, but perhaps if Ian was going out there he could take it. With the ring. Would he give it to his niece, right the ship that had listed badly, set the line straight again? It had crossed her mind more than once that her own daughter didn’t deserve it, wouldn’t value it, would likely not get married anyway, that she’d feel far safer leaving it to her son, but more often than not she’d ended up thinking I shall probably have to. Not now, though. Not now. Her mother had once again and with spectacular dismissal, broken something Finetta thought could never be broken.