Olivia protested, her voice tremulous, ‘But you loved me, Sean. You did.’

‘You messed me up!’ Sean shouted, his thin, pitted face contorted. ‘You don’t know what love is. You controlled me – sent me off my brain.’ He turned to Jake suddenly. ‘You ask her what she does. She leads you on and then turns against you – backwards, forwards, so you don’t know where you are. She makes you so you can’t get her out of your mind. You used me – ’ He pointed at Olivia again. ‘And last night she came at me with a razor blade, tried to slash me. Look.’ Wrenching up the sleeve of his T-shirt, he showed them a ridge of Elastoplast along his shoulder. ‘Wasn’t deep. I got out of her way. You’re a fucking crazy bitch!’ he yelled at Olivia. ‘People ought to know.’

Bending down, he snatched up the bag with such force that the things on top fell out and he had to stuff them in again. He backed out of the room, pushing past Ben, who was standing in the doorway.

‘I should’ve burned the whole fucking house down. I should have burned her to death in her bed.’

The front door slammed. There was silence, then Olivia’s sobbing. She covered her face with her hands.

Anna went to her, afraid to touch her. Then, tenderly, she stroked the dark hair, more streaked with white than she had realized, feeling the warmth of Olivia’s head beneath it, the trembling of her body. She pulled out one of the chairs and sat down beside her, not heeding the water on it.

‘Livy,’ she said softly. ‘It’s all right, I’m here. Don’t worry, my love.’

Olivia’s body crumpled. She leaned over until she was half lying in Anna’s lap, sobs breaking out, sometimes from a place so deep that she was rigid for a few seconds, not drawing breath. Then a great cry would come, high and terrible, and gulping sounds of distress.

And Anna held her, stroking her, trying to soothe her, tears running down her own face.

‘Oh, Anna,’ Olivia said when she could catch her breath. ‘Anna. Anna.’

‘It’s all right,’ Anna said again. ‘I’m here. I’m here, Livy.’ She was overwhelmed with tenderness, and with the peculiar sadness of that tenderness.

She didn’t know how long they sat there together. She noticed nothing else. After a time Olivia sat up and put her face in her hands again. From behind them she said, ‘I’m so alone.’

Anna saw Jake move across to her from where he had been sitting with Krish, beckoning her out of the room.

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she told Olivia softly.

In the hall, Jake said, ‘I’ve called a doctor.’ Seeing Anna’s face fill with panic, he added, ‘It’s just her GP. Krish told me he’s occasionally given her something to make her sleep. I think he knows her quite well.’

They all helped Olivia up to bed as if she were a child. Her movements were slow and trancelike. Jake came back down to wait for the doctor and Anna was left with Olivia and Krish. Anna wanted to speak to him, worried by his silence, his troubled eyes, but somehow could not in front of Olivia. And she simply did as they asked her, lay down on the bed, her hair in waves round her pale face on the two thick pillows. There was a limpness about her, but her face was anxious.