‘Mum, we know,’ Imo said.

‘No,’ I managed, ‘you don’t.’ She didn’t. Ned didn’t. It had been my life’s work. The only thing that kept me going. And writing stupid, frivolous books as a decoy. To keep it from them. I blew my nose into the tissue she’d handed me which was wet already from mopping tears.

‘OK, we don’t know everything,’ she said softly, still holding me tight. ‘But we know enough. And can take it now. We’re adults.’

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure they could. Not all of it.

‘And if we don’t know, we can imagine. Which might even be worse.’

‘He never hurt me physically, you know that, don’t you?’ I glanced at her. It was very important she did. She nodded quickly.

‘Of course, you’ve always told us that, and we believe you. And Mum,’ she paused to make me look at her. ‘You have to believe he never laid a finger on Ned or me, either.’ I did know that, but it was always a huge relief to hear it. ‘But there are other, subtler ways. Particularly for an intelligent man like Dad. And you have to know, hard as it might be, that yes, Ned and I suffered, and we kept some of it from you, too, but not from each other. We always had each other.’

Relief swept through me. ‘You talked about it?’

‘Always. We made each other. We had a pact. Told each other everything. The threats he made. And that definitively kept us sane.’

I remembered their regular lunches, dinners, whenever Imo was across. Ned often going to see her in New York. I felt my breathing come down a bit. Helena looked fit to burst a blood vessel, but she was silent. I knew there was a lot she could say about all of us remaining silent, how we should all have spoken out – including her, to some extent – but couldn’t. For fear of reprisals. That’s what you did, for love. And we were the lucky ones, we three. We had that. Love. Michael didn’t.

‘I’d have left him for an hour,’ said Helena.

‘I’d have left him there all night,’ replied Imo.

For some reason this struck us as unbearably funny. We exchanged looks and then snorted, all quietly horrified at our hysteria. Eventually we got ourselves under control amid strange looks from the rest of the pub, who can’t have been totally unaware of my sobs earlier. I might avoid this place for a while.