She found jobs for Roland: he spent one afternoon clearing the garage.

‘You’ll put the house on the market, I suppose?’ he asked when she brought out a mug of tea.

Anna shrugged. ‘I really don’t know what I’m going to do. You see, I’ve left Richard.’

‘Oh, Anna – ’ Roland’s eyes were two pools of concern. ‘I am sorry. I’d no idea. How long?’

‘The day after the funeral.’ She held up a hand to stem the rush of Roland’s sympathy. ‘It’s right, I know that.’ She paused. ‘I’ve also decided to resign my job.’

Roland gaped at her. ‘Anna. Why? Everything at once, so hastily like this? What are you going to do?’

She shrugged, pulling dead heads from a pink rose by the garage. ‘I just want things to be different. I don’t want to have to decide anything else yet. I want to take stock for a while.’ She looked round at Roland. ‘Mummy never thought much of Richard, did she?’

Roland’s brow creased. ‘I wouldn’t say that. She admired his drive, I think. It’s just that I think she felt you weren’t – what was her phrase? – building each other into more than you would be on your own. That was her idea of what a good relationship should be. She thought Richard was dragging you down.’

‘I wish she’d said.’

‘You wouldn’t have liked it if she had.’

‘True.’ After a silence, she said, ‘That’s how it was with my father, wasn’t it? She felt he was chewing away at her, diminishing her.’

Roland looked uncomfortable again. ‘I suppose that was about it.’

She had found some old photographs of Daisy Turnbull and Lisa and asked Roland about them.

‘Lisa Turnbull?’ He chuckled. ‘Now I did meet her. Kate said she owed Lisa a lot. Not sure why, but she liked her because she was rather to the point as I remember.’

‘I remember her – from when I was little. She is dead, isn’t she?’ It seemed terrible, all these years passing and not knowing now whether people were alive or dead.

‘Died three or four years ago,’ Roland said. ‘Cancer as well. Lung I suppose. She used to smoke like a power station.’ He eyed the cigarette in Anna’s hand.

‘I know, I know,’ she said.

‘Lisa went to live out at Sheldon when they did away with the slums round the Birch. Kate saw more of her towards the end again.’

She later found a few other photographs. Roland appeared in some of them, the three of them grouped together like a family. In one he was holding her, aged about three, a rather slimmer but still comical Roland, smiling at her in his arms. He must have been tickling her because she was giggling, face crinkled. Anna looked at it, frowning. Exactly what her mother had felt for Roland was something she knew she would never now find out.

August 27th, 1981

Dear Olivia,

I am Anna Craven, Kate Craven’s daughter. I have your address from my mother and wonder if I might call in and see you some time in the next few days?