‘He slept with the curtains open, anyway,’ said Georgie.

Hazel did not ask Georgie how she had come to know this. The narrow room felt small, with three grown women standing in it. Hazel went to the window and looked out across the tops of the trees towards the river. It felt like a small miracle, to be standing where he’d stood, all those years ago. She’d been a schoolgirl on the other side of the world, when her brother had inhabited this room. She wished their mother was still alive, so she could describe the view to her. It was a lovely view.

‘Could I just take a minute?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ said Cass, touched. ‘We’ll see you back downstairs. No hurry.’

Once they’d gone, Hazel sat down on the bed. She lay back, careful not to put her shoes on the bedcover, and closed her eyes and then opened them, imagining what it had been like for him, waking up in this place. She touched the door and the dented brass door knob and then went again and stood in the window. She touched the wooden window frame and the metal catch. She stood and looked at the trees and sky.

At the table Cass spoke to Hazel about her memories of Stephen while Adam talked about politics with Dawn and Georgie. Cass said what a thoughtful person he’d been; sweet-natured, gentle.

‘We weren’t used to the accent. Cornwall felt much more remote, in those days. I don’t know that we’d ever met an Australian person before. We used to love it when he came out with funny little phrases. We’d all say them. Everyone liked him, who met him.’

Hazel was really pleased. She’d heard nice things about Stephen today. It was a huge relief to her that he’d been mostly OK, while he was out here. It had always frightened her, to imagine him being miserable and getting sick. The thought of his loneliness was hard to bear, even now. And there were repercussions for her, for her sister, for their families. She had fretted that it could have been a genetic predisposition which brought on Stephen’s illness; she’d worried for her children. She still did. She knew that it was the same for her sister Karen. That was why Karen fell over herself to accommodate her daughter Ginny, because she was terrified that suicide might be something that could run in a family, like hair colour. Whereas she had dealt with her own fear in the opposite way, by encouraging her children to be independent. If they were in the habit of self-reliance, then they’d always have that to draw on. That’s what Hazel believed and had tried to live by.