Betty puts her hand on Gloria’s back and points inside. ‘Top of the stairs, left for the loo, first right for the bedroom. Sheets are clean.’

Gloria hugs her. ‘I love you already, Betty.’

Betty laughs, and together she and William watch Gloria walk into the house. Each stair gently creaks as she climbs them.

‘Come in the kitchen while I make a pot of tea.’

William follows. ‘So, this is your new house?’

‘Not so new now.’ Betty smiles and reaches for mugs, kettle, tea, barely having to move. ‘How come you met Mary?’

William leans against the worktop in the galley kitchen. ‘Gloria got talking to her at the graveyard.’ Betty nudges him to the left to get into the fridge. ‘She told us on the day of the funeral how she went up the mountain, and heard someone singing “Myfanwy”.’

‘We all know that story. Her angel.’

William says nothing. Betty stops pouring the milk. ‘Oh Lord, was it you?’

‘I came back to pay my respects but I didn’t want to intrude, so I went up behind the cemetery and when that wretched helicopter appeared’ – he shrugs – ‘it just came out of me.’

She shakes her head. ‘We were all hit hard, but some buckled more visibly.’ She stirs the tea and then puts the lid on the pot and concentrates on him. ‘Mary was one of those. But she’s had two more children since. Boy and a girl. Lovely, they are. So you see, you didn’t just help all those parents say goodbye to their little ones, you helped Mary live with herself.’ She pours a mug and hands it to him. ‘You take this up to her.’

Awkward at crossing the threshold, William can tell, even with Gloria’s back to him, that she’s fast asleep. He puts the tea down on the wicker bedside table, in case she wakes thirsty, and walks light-footed out of the room and back down the stairs. Betty is sitting in the lounge, a square room with a sofa and two armchairs arranged in a triangle around a glass coffee table.

‘She’s flat out.’

‘Bless her. When’s the baby due?’

It hits William that it hasn’t occurred to him to ask. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What?’ Her face is half frown, half smile.

‘Long story.’ He sits on the sofa opposite Betty. ‘I didn’t know until yesterday she was pregnant. I left her two months ago.’

She studies him, as if waiting for an alternative version that makes sense. ‘You’re telling me,’ she says eventually, ‘this is the first time you’ve seen each other for weeks and weeks? And you’ve come here?’

A clock chimes hurriedly somewhere in the house. A cat runs in and jumps onto Betty’s lap. She lays her hand on its back and it lies down.