‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Sorry. I forgot.’ I always seemed to say the wrong thing.

‘Your father’s going to be late.’ I wondered why she was even commenting on the fact since Daddy was late almost every day. ‘Sometimes I don’t know why he doesn’t take a truckle-bed and go and sleep in the surgery.’ She checked herself, remembering that Mrs Drysdale was still working over by the sink. Mummy pointed at the ceiling. ‘I take it she’s quietened down?’

‘She’s all right,’ I assured her, glad I’d managed to do something right. ‘And she’s promised faithfully to be as good as gold from now on.’

‘Well,’ Mummy said drily. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

Chapter 5

‘Can I come with you, Daddy? Please?’

He hesitated over his boiled egg, not meeting my eye. William was scraping his toast with irritating loudness so that charred black crumbs dusted his plate.

‘I don’t think so,’ Mummy intervened abruptly. ‘You haven’t been down there for years. You’re too old.’

‘What your mother means,’ Daddy said, his manner less harsh than Mummy’s, ‘is that you might find some aspects of it rather unappealing at your age. You were just a little girl when you used to come before.’

Occasionally as a small child I’d gone down to the surgery with Daddy and sat in the corner of the drab waiting-room with my colouring pad and crayons, amid all the coughing and sighing and complaining about things I couldn’t understand. I was curious, hungry to see my father’s other life. It was the very fact I might now be able to make more sense of it all that attracted me. And Granny had supported me. I think she hoped it might bring Daddy and me closer.

‘And the patients wouldn’t like it either,’ Mummy said, sniffing. She had a heavy summer cold and would have been feeling very sorry for herself had she ever permitted indulgence in such emotions.

‘I think you should go,’ William said, taking an enormous mouthful of toast and speaking through it. ‘The sight of you would shock them all into feeling better. Either that or finish them off altogether.’

‘William!’ Mummy said.

I scowled, and Daddy pretended the conversation wasn’t happening, a tendency of his which I found hugely aggravating.

‘This is not just a game,’ I said. ‘I really do want to come.’ In my enthusiasm I knocked over my egg cup and Mummy tutted.

My father wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘No one’ll object,’ he reassured Mummy. ‘Katie seems interested in looking after people. You do wonders with your granny after all, don’t you?’

My mother buttered her toast in silence.

‘You don’t mind, do you Mummy?’

She looked up, tight-lipped. ‘Why should I mind? I’m just thinking of your health – all those germs. But your father’s the doctor. I was only a nurse, after all, so what do I know?’

Having to abandon her job as a children’s nurse on marrying Daddy was a sacrifice about which she had never ceased to feel bitter.