Gloria drops her voice, but he can still hear. ‘He came back for the funerals, but this is the first time since.’

‘He came to the funerals? That’s more than I did. I didn’t go to my own child’s funeral. Imagine that!’

‘I can’t imagine any of it,’ Gloria says.

‘The guilt of it would have eaten me up if it wasn’t for something that happened. My own little miracle that kept me going. Still does.’

‘What was it? Do you mind me asking?’

William walks on a little but stays within earshot. He stares at the inscriptions, listening to the soft rhythm of the woman’s voice.

‘There’s a lane me and my little girl used to like, alongside here. She’d zoom along on her scooter with my shopping bag hanging off the handles, full of things she’d collected. Bits of fern, wildflowers, blackberries, anything she could pick and drop in the bag.

‘On the day of the funerals, I told my husband to go for both of us, and I went up there. I could see everyone, but they couldn’t see me. I sat against this almighty big rock that she used to draw on with her chalks. I wondered if any of it would still be there, but we’d had so much rain it had washed away. It was like I had a God’s-eye view. I watched people putting their flowers on the huge cross. They’d come from all over the world, those flowers. Everyone looked so small. And I thought – how can we bear this? How can we possibly bear this pain? I wished we’d all died that morning. All of us together. That would have been better, I thought.’

William is desperate to turn round but he can’t.

‘And then this racket came from nowhere, above my head. It was a bloody helicopter, full of photographers! Well, that nearly polished me off. It was my girl who’d died, my heart that was breaking. What did the rest of the world want to be doing with us? And then it started, this beautiful, beautiful voice from behind me. Singing “Myfanwy”, a song that means a lot to us in the valleys.’

‘Yes’ – Gloria’s voice is low – ‘I know it.’

‘I didn’t dare move. Whoever it was thought they were alone. So I just leant against that rock, watched the dirt thrown on the grave of my precious girl and let this – angel, whoever he was – be my voice. I let him sing that lovely, sad song, from me to my little girl. And now, if I’m on my own here, I sing it to her myself.’