“I mean, for mother.” Ian looked uncomprehending, and so she ploughed on. “As I say, I had to tell the nurses; they’re frightfully particular about visitors.”

“Why did you have to tell the nurses?”

“Because they’re frightfully particular about visitors. They all thought it was frightfully exciting.” She’d chosen the wrong word. “Thrilling. I don’t know.”

“Did they?”

“And they told her. I am sorry.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it matters.” He cut into a lamb chop. “I won’t stay.”

“Yes, but you see they telephoned—”

“Has she had a collapse?”

“I was in the bath.”

“What a bore.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“I’m only after the picture.”

“I can get it for you.”

“I’d like to get it myself.”

“But you really don’t have to.”

“Shall we talk about something else?” It was an order, not a question. He finished one chop and cut into the next. Finetta ate a slither of plaice. It dripped with a white, insipid sauce. The vegetables between them went untouched.

But then he said, as if he hadn’t heard himself, “Do you remember how she put her head round the door?”

She remembered.

“We carried on playing with my boat.”

“She won’t talk about him, you know.”

“I don’t expect her to.”

“That’s not why you’re seeing her?”

“I’ve told you why I’m seeing her.”

“She won’t say his name.”

“I expect she’s forgotten it,” he replied. “I thought we might walk after lunch, to pass the time. Would you like that? Is it near the Heath? We could have a stroll to settle ourselves.”

“Quite near.” She hadn’t been hungry in the first place and she couldn’t eat. Another scene of hatred and regret, a decrepit blast of shots long fallen wide that would spatter Finetta and leave her bleeding. She’d be the one that was left – not their mother, not Ian, but her, Finetta, left to stand in another ruined city, forgotten again, picking up the pieces of a family that didn’t care to be whole.

“All that God,” said Ian.

“Frightful, I know.”

“Does she still shout out Christ’s name?”

“I think they have prayer meetings, I’m not sure. Most of them can’t get out of bed and the ones that can just shuffle about. It should be illegal, not calling a doctor when they fall or their hearts give way.”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

“You’d think they’d die off quicker, but there’s plenty of them.”

“I’m sure God will get to each of them in the end,” said Ian.

“Extraordinary to pray for life to a deity that specifically designed the body to die.” Finetta sipped her water.

“None of it ever made any sense.”

Finetta tried a carrot. “The thing is, they said not to come.”

“Who said?”

“The nurses. They said she won’t see you.”