The grounds at Arden were in a shocking state. The hospital had been used for wounded servicemen during the war and it was only just in the process of adapting back to its normal use. This decrepitude only increased its grimness. It looked terrible. The grass was long and full of dandelions and thistles. The drive itself had clumps of grass growing between the wheel tracks and the flowerbeds were only just identifiable, so choked were they with weeds and branches from the overgrown bushes behind them. The wide view across the front looked more like a cattle field than the grounds of a hospital.

The brickwork of the building itself was stained in places, and the roof, half covered with moss, showed dark gaps where slates had slid off and smashed on the ground where they still lay. The windows were grimy, some of the panes broken, and I wondered if these were in windows of dormitories. The building must have been cold enough in the winter as it was. I could hardly bear to think of Olivia inside there. Already, I felt I had stepped out of the world into a terrible, removed place.

When we told the porter, a leathery-cheeked man, who we had come to visit, he said, ‘Crikey – we don’t get many visitors coming to see this lot.’

He led us into a large hall and told us to wait. The hall must have been very grand before the war. Its ceiling was high and decorated with ornately carved wood. There were long windows along one side with iron radiators beneath them, which I found a reassuring sight. There was a platform at one end of the room. But once again everything looked dirty and worn. The grain of the wooden floor was obscured by grime and hundreds of round black indentations showed where rows of metal bedsteads had stood.

We waited in silence, not looking at each other, as if we were both ashamed to be there.

I was prepared for Olivia looking different, but when they brought her in, her arm grasped by a muscular nurse, I actually gasped. Her removal from the world outside seemed to have become a physical reality. Everything that had made her beautiful had in a few weeks altered or faded. They had dressed her in someone’s green gingham dress of a ludicrously large size which sat limp on her like a sack. Her hair, normally so glossy and curling, hung in flat, lank sheets each side of her face; her cheeks were pale and blemished. She barely raised her gaze from the floor, and when she did, her eyes were empty of expression.

‘Livy?’ I bent my head to intercept her gaze. I saw myself, guiltily, as I must have seemed to her: larger somehow than this place would allow, face blooming from the air outside, healthy and free in a blue dirndl dress and light coat. She continued to stare at the floor.

The nurse, with cheeks the colour of boiled ham, led her to a chair. When she made no effort to sit on it the nurse pushed her down. The woman’s masculine-looking arms bulged out from the sleeves of her tight blue uniform dress and she smelled pungently of sweat. I pulled a chair round to face Livy. The nurse stood over her. ‘Could you leave us, please?’ I said sharply.