Lorna swallowed hard because the first feeling she had was one of upset. Indignation, too. Olivia had married someone else, who wasn’t Aidan? She’d had children with this man? Lorna couldn’t believe how disconcerted this made her feel. Which – yes, okay – which she knew, rationally, was wrong of her. Wrong and unfair. Of course the poor thing was entitled to marry someone else, rather than live the rest of her life miserably alone, mourning her teenage boyfriend. But oh – Aidan. Poor Aidan! She hoped, if he was in the room with them, that he wasn’t too devastated by this bombshell. Don’t listen, my love. Hands over your ears, just like when you were tiny and the fireworks scared you.

‘I see,’ she managed to say. Oh dear, and now she sounded all stiff and formal, as if she disapproved. Probably because she did, just a little bit, even though she knew she shouldn’t. ‘I noticed you weren’t wearing a ring and assumed . . .’ She tailed off weakly, wishing she hadn’t said anything now. To think two minutes ago she had actually felt grateful to Olivia, for not marrying anyone! What an idiot she was. Wait till she told Roy. ‘No fool like an old fool,’ he would say mildly, before giving her a consoling hug.

Olivia’s head was bowed. ‘I took the ring off,’ she said. ‘We’re going through a bit of a bad patch. I just needed to get away.’

Thoughts were jumbling around in Lorna’s head and she found that she didn’t know how to articulate any of them. Olivia was a wife and a mother, but had walked out on the family? This didn’t sound good. In fact it sounded very much like history repeating itself, she thought, remembering the stories about Olivia’s own bad apple of a mum. Wild Sylvia Asbury of the kohl-rimmed eyes and tangled hennaed hair, that gap between her front teeth when she gave you one of her lazy smiles. The men had flocked around her like dazed bees to her honey. According to the gossip, she’d been having a very public fling with a man from St Mawes (the latest in a long line) and, word had it, they’d vanished to the States together when he was accused of a burglary and had promptly gone underground. It had all been hushed up to protect the children of course. ‘Oh dear,’ she said now. ‘And do you ever . . . Sorry, I don’t want to pry, but did you ever hear from your mum again? I know she went away, but is she around to help at all?’

Olivia’s face closed up. ‘She died.’

‘Oh darling, I’m sorry,’ said Lorna. ‘It must be so hard, not having her there to turn to. I remember when I first became a mum and—’