Realization rushed through Anna’s mind, appalling. ‘Olivia,’ she said gently. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. Look, this is partly why I came now.’ She could barely get the words out. ‘Mummy died on July 29th. She’d been ill for some time. I just assumed you knew.’

Something stopped her touching Olivia. A glove of complete stillness had slipped over her, something impregnable which made Anna afraid. She could think of nothing to say, nor could she read the look in Olivia’s eyes.

They both stood there, very still. Then Olivia said, ‘No,’ softly at first. She made a swift movement and grabbed the kettle beside her full of almost boiling water, yanking it so that the flex came out and water splashed from under the lid soaking her hand, and she hurled it across the pale blue table. The lid came off and water pooled, steaming, across the table, splattering down on to the floor, and the kettle took the milk bottle with it so there was a smash of glass and a diluting white pool and the tinny bounce of the kettle on the tiles.

And Olivia’s cries, her hand scalded. ‘No, no, no!’ she screamed. ‘She can’t be. She can’t be!’ The mugs crashed to the floor and she was opening the cupboard by her head and hurling sugar, tea, coffee across the kitchen. The cries tapered to a high scream which kept coming and coming out of her mouth like thin metal tape.

When Krish and Jake came pounding down to the kitchen, Anna was pressed against the stove, eyes stretched wide. A pile of sugar was dissolving gently into the water on the table, and tins from the next cupboard were slamming against the pantry door at the opposite end of the room.

‘Get her arms,’ Krish ordered Jake. ‘Just hold her still a minute while I talk to her.’ He began making soothing noises.

Though Jake was far bigger than Olivia, he seemed to need to use a good deal of his strength to grasp her from behind and pin her arms to her sides. As soon as he held her, though, she surrendered automatically as if by routine.

Krish stood in front of her, bending to look up into her face with big, appealing eyes. ‘Ma? Are you all right, mamaji?’ He spoke in a babyish voice, kept repeating the same phrase, hypnotically, again and again. ‘It’s all right, Krishna’s here, mamaji. Krish loves you.’ Then he began saying things Anna couldn’t understand, in the same soothing voice, and she realized after a moment that he was speaking Bengali, and once more it was the same phrase, over and over. Olivia had gone limp.

‘It’s OK, Jake, you can let go,’ Krish said.

Jake withdrew his arms. Anna became aware of an unpleasant smell in the room, but couldn’t work out what it was.

Krish took Olivia in his arms and held her against him. The two of them were completely absorbed in each other as if Anna and Jake weren’t there. Olivia was crying in a terrible, broken way, and Krish kept saying ‘Ssh,’ and ‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’