But through the dull ache Tara had instinctively noticed the tiny changes in Toby, whose face she’d once known as well as her own. His voice on the phone was the same, but physically he was a subtly different person, a successful British soap star recast with a Hollywood actor. Tara’s eyes, sharper nearly a year on, raked him for more changes: travel had bestowed a golden year-round tan and his shoulders had broadened out under his leather jacket. His hair was still thick and chunky (‘My little Dennis the Menace,’ Dad used to joke) but streaked prematurely with a few fine silvery threads that she hadn’t noticed last time.

Like Dad, she thought. At least Toby wasn’t vain enough to colour them over.

‘Toby!’ She ran down the path, her arms wide open. It was impossible not to.

‘Hey, Tarantino,’ he said with a grin, pushing the hair out of his eyes and then dropping his bag so he could hug her.

‘Does James Bond know you’ve nicked his car?’ she asked, nodding at the convertible.

‘Very funny.’

It was a decent hug, lasting several seconds longer than Tara expected. It was warm, open-hearted; Toby smelled the same as ever. She heard ‘good to be here, I missed you’ in the wordless squeeze of his forehead into her shoulder. Tara hoped he could feel her ‘I’m so glad you’re here making this house feel more like home’.

‘Jeez, it’s weird to walk in here,’ he said, as they made their way inside. ‘It is our house, isn’t it?’

He hadn’t come back after the funeral. Diane was still living there, and Toby had asked to stay with Tara in Hartley. He didn’t want to visit their old home, and Tara had been too shaken off her axis by grief to care, let alone ask why not.

‘Is this the first time you’ve been here since … well, since when?’

‘Since I left home.’ Toby gazed around, looking for landmarks and finding none. ‘She’s changed it completely yet something’s … something’s the same. Is it the smell?’ He sniffed, then frowned. ‘It smells like Branston. Can that be right? Does dog hair have some kind of nuclear half-life?’

‘No, it’s Lloyd,’ Tara corrected him. ‘Molly’s Lab. Different dog, same smell. Want some tea?’

‘Tea! Ha! Tea. Yes, tea’d be great.’ He followed her into the kitchen, and froze. ‘Woah.’

Tara knew what Toby was feeling. It was disconcerting: the walls and the furniture might be different but the trees were the same, Dad’s glass and oak kingdom rising at the bottom of the garden, their old swing still down by the hedge. The house hadn’t changed. It had been waiting for them to return. Now Toby was back, it felt as if it had shifted nearer to her memories.