‘I know. You’ve been so good. Thank you.’

‘Want to be on your own for a bit?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. I think I do. I’ll go and face the house. But it’d be lovely to see you again – soon. I haven’t been coming back often enough, I know that.’

Roland gave her hand a final pat as if to absolve her from any sense of guilt, put his little tweed hat back on his head, and with his usual supreme tact walked on ahead of her. She watched, eyes full of affection. He was squeezed into an ancient black suit, a fraction too small, and the hat looked quite incongruous with it, but that was all Roland – one of the things for which they had loved him.

Not wanting to run into anyone else, she followed swiftly past immaculate borders of marigolds to the wrought-iron gates. As she reached her car, the clouds started to let rain fall.

*

The cutting from the Post about Kate’s retirement was pinned to the noticeboard in her kitchen with a yellow-tipped tack.

‘“Aunt” Kate to retire after forty years’, it read, and beside the caption a photograph of Kate’s round face beaming at a baby in her arms. She was restraining the plump hand that was reaching up towards her face.

‘He was a little demon,’ Kate had told Anna, laughing. ‘He was determined to pull my glasses off!’

Kate Craven, known as ‘Aunt’ by generations of the city’s children, retires this week after nearly forty years’ Health Visiting.

A motherly, if often outspoken character, Kate will not be forgotten by the many women whom she has advised and supported over the years.

Her career began in 1938 as a nurse at the General Hospital and in her time she worked in most areas of South Birmingham, as well as being an ardent promoter of Health Education in schools.

From her final post at Poplar Road Clinic in Kings Heath she was given a send off today by staff and parents.

‘She’s a lovely lady,’ said one mother of three. ‘Flexible, honest, and always kind. Everyone will miss her.’

Anna stared at the picture again, the smile on that round, generous face. What is all this? What have you kept from me?

The phone started ringing. She knew it was Richard. She should have unplugged the thing.

‘How was it then?’ he said. She could picture him standing in the hall of their house in Coventry, still in his casual social-worker clothes, moss-green cords, brown jacket, shirt open at the neck. No tie of course.

‘It was a ball, what d’you think?’ He should have taken the day off and been there with her.

‘Sorry.’

Anna didn’t say anything.

‘So you’re not coming back tonight then?’

‘No,’ she agreed flatly. ‘I’m not coming back tonight. Nor tomorrow. I’ve got all the house to sort. There’s no point in driving up and down now it’s the holidays, is there?’

‘If you say so. Only I could do with the car. It’s a bit awkward.’ There was a sigh in his voice, but then he always sounded rather long-suffering on the phone.