Should she lie? Say nothing? She got out again and lifted the windscreen wipers out of the grasp of the frost. The Sprite chugged plumes of vapours into the air. The street was quiet, most of the cars and people had gone off to work. A front door slammed further up the road and a woman with a dog crossed to the other pavement, shopping bags in hand. She wondered if she should get a dog. Get some company. Stop being so bloody alone. In her seat again she switched on the wipers. Damned car never warmed up. She’d have to go. She didn’t want to be late.

She set off towards the pub where she and Ian always met. It was halfway between them, and an hour from Hampstead. They’d have time for lunch, and perhaps a walk, before she’d have to go. If she went. Maybe she should cancel too.

The traffic was clear; she chugged along. On the main road to Windsor, she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. It had been his idea, not hers. She slowed behind a truck. They’d never spoken of her mother. He’d gone off to Eton, she’d gone to Vienna, the war had broken out. After it was over, he’d gone to Washington, and come back again a few years later. The truck turned off and she pressed the accelerator. He’d got married, had a daughter, got divorced, married again and had a son. He’d written that there was another child on the way, and six months later that she’d died.

Was that why he’d chosen now to see her? Some sort of misjudged effort at forgiveness? Didn’t he know their mother was rotten to the core? That she didn’t feel anything? That she passed over sorrow and death as if she was made of the same brick as her frightful nursing home? If he thought he understood her, he was wrong. Maybe he knew she was dying, nearly dead. Not dead enough, but almost.

God, she was an awful daughter. She indicated left and checked her mirrors. She’d had just the same thoughts when she’d had her children, a moment of wild compassion when she’d thought now I see but it hadn’t lasted. As soon as the real Enid had been put up against the mother in her head, she’d realised her mistake. Real Enid didn’t change. Real Enid was the same as old Enid, the one who’d dragged her through it all like so much discarded Christmas wrapping – useless, but too pretty to throw away.