I watched uneasily, trying to smile at her delight. There was that brittleness, the over-excitement I had seen in her in the weeks before Arden. I was not comfortable examining each of her moves for signs of unbalance, like her warder, but I was worried. Things had begun to niggle at me. I had been concentrating so hard on the thought that if she could grieve for her baby she could find a degree of healing and calm. But now the other memories, which had been pushed out during our time of intense closeness when Livy was childlike, dependent solely on me, needled my mind. Some of the difficult aspects of her behaviour even before the war forced themselves on me.

I could feel things sliding. We had been so close, so tranquil for a few weeks. Unknown to us, we had been inching along a balance, and now the ground was beginning to tilt under us.

Livy had started seeing more of her mother.

‘Darling!’ Elizabeth would say when she flurried into our house, putting on her sparkling social face and a relentless cheerfulness with Livy. ‘Look what I’ve brought you,’ she’d cry. She came with new clothes, money, flowers, even sweets, as if pacifying an infant. Elizabeth showed more vivacity than I had seen in her for years. Sometimes the two of them went out shopping together.

On the previous visit, though, it had been damp outside, and they sat in with me. The house felt cosy, smudged light coming from outside through steamed-up windows. I made tea and sat listening to them, taking refuge in knitting to avoid being drawn into the conversation.

‘So how are you, darling?’ Elizabeth gushed over Livy. She sat close to her, fondling her hand. ‘You look so much better,’ she went on without giving Olivia time to reply. ‘Quite my girl again. Dear Katie must be looking after you so well.’ She darted a smile in my direction, her face immaculately masked by powder and lipstick. ‘We owe you such a debt, Katie.’

I managed a smile. I didn’t want Olivia to know what had passed between me and her parents while she was in Arden, or quite what it had taken to get her out.

‘Katie’s so marvellous,’ Olivia said. Her voice had gone small again: that of a six-year-old. ‘I’m really feeling much much better.’ I thought of her dreams, the tremor of her body, most nights still.

Elizabeth reached down for a parcel which she had been carrying when she arrived. ‘Look, darling – I’ve brought you something to give you a bit of a lift. Nothing like something new to raise your spirits, is there?’

Olivia took the gift and unwrapped it, sliding out from the layers of paper a handbag in soft brown calfskin. She gave her mother a brilliant smile and leaned over to kiss her cheek, giggling a little breathlessly as she did so.

‘It’s gorgeous, Mummy, thank you. A lovely thing to have.’