Night sweats, bad dreams and waking flashbacks have been in their marriage from day one, a short six months after Aberfan, but Gloria seemed to take them in her stride, just as she seemed to take his determination to remain childless in her stride. It’s getting on for six years since Aberfan. Six years! He’d hoped as time went on, his brain would calm down, that the electric-snap bursts of battered limbs, broken bones and most of all, parents’ stricken faces, would start to fade. If anything, they’re getting worse.

He has wondered about the other two Birmingham embalmers who went to Aberfan. Do they suffer like him? He knows Gloria would approve were he to get in touch with them. It’s not the embalmers’ way, he always concludes. At times it’s a tough job, but William has always felt it’s expected to bear those times quietly, with dignity.

William can’t shake off the feeling, since Gloria made the move to psychiatric nursing, that she wants to cure him. He was pleased that unlike many of her friends, she never considered giving up work just because she was getting married. But when she talks about using his energy in the wrong way, and not facing things, he feels viewed through the lens of that Dr Kavannagh. Gloria says that other psychiatrists dismiss his talking therapy as hippy mumbo jumbo – so why she thinks everything he says comes from the mouth of God, he doesn’t know.

Every time she suggests they go to Cambridge, so he can face things, he worries that what she really wants is for him to sort himself out enough to change his mind about children. Determined as he has been, he knows that this elephant in the room of their relationship will never go away. Even when she’s too old to bear children, their absence will sadden her and judge him. It will never be settled. Ever.

He turns off the TV and quietly leaves the house to walk the ten minutes to the station, catching the earthy smell of imminent spring.

‘Gloria?’ he shouts up the stairs on his return.

‘Yeah?’ she calls from their room, and he recognises, with a beat of affection, how there’s always hope in her voice, always the anticipation he’s going to say something to please her.

He starts up the stairs, but she’s coming down and they meet halfway. ‘I’ve done something good.’ He grins.

‘What’s that then?’ She puts her hands on her hips, nonchalant, teasing, looking down from the higher stair.

He holds up the little oblongs. ‘Train tickets to Cambridge. Today.’

Her slow, broad smile could warm the whole house. Her arms wrap round his neck and she pulls his head into her chest.

‘And,’ he says into the softness of her, ‘I’ve booked us into a bed and breakfast, close to the station.’