Then she thought of the reality of those questions: Was my mother’s lover the father of your child? Why did you try to murder me when I was a baby? And the conversation became inconceivable. Hardly questions to be tossed out over tea and cakes.

She parked the car, this time closer to Olivia’s house. Her watch said four-fifteen. She should have left earlier. Walking to the house, overnight bag in one hand and a white cake box balanced on the other, it occurred to her that Olivia ought to be more nervous than herself about any conversation they might have. Perhaps she had things she needed to get off her chest. With this encouraging thought that everything might not be up to her, Anna went to the house.

Sean answered the door, looking pale and miserable.

‘You’re late,’ he remarked.

Anna felt irritation mingled with her pity for him. ‘You the butler?’ she asked lightly, and immediately regretted it.

She became aware of the sound of the piano behind him. She had no idea what the piece was. It was fast and passionate and hearing it brought up her flesh in goosepimples.

‘Is that her?’ she whispered.

Sean’s white, pitted face shifted to the nearest thing she’d seen to a smile. ‘She’s bloody fantastic, isn’t she?’

‘Should I go through?’

‘Yes. She’s waiting for you. Just sit down and wait till she’s finished. She doesn’t like being interrupted.’

Anna slipped into the long room and sat on one of the easy chairs behind Olivia, the box of cakes on her lap. The room looked beautiful, her roses in a vase on the table and the breeze wafting the coloured silks at the window. Once more, Olivia had changed. The harsh look of the morning was gone and now she had a softer, more relaxed appearance: a white blouse with a wide, frill-edged collar and a full skirt in panels of red, green and gold. The back view of her, with her hair loose, was of someone much younger. She leaned her body into the music, playing with every part of her, not just her hands. Watching, Anna saw her complete absorption and concentration and knew that the beauty of it was what Kate had seen when they were girls together. By the time Olivia drew to the end of the piece and played the long, last chords, Anna was seeing in front of her the young Olivia, before the war, before Arden, even before she began listening at doors, or being locked behind them. She saw into the sadness of Olivia’s life, and the death of her friendship with Kate seemed suddenly far more terrible than the loss of any bond with a man: far worse than the end of her relationship with Richard, or Kate’s with Douglas.

As the music stopped there was a discordant jangle from the doorbell which made Anna jump. She heard Jake talking to Sean and felt jarred by it. His arrival was wrong. She didn’t need help. Olivia was lovely, tender, sad. Anna wanted nothing more now than to talk to her alone.