‘This is not about your father. This is about you and me. Because I’m sick. I’m very sick, Camilla, and I’m not going to get better. I know I’ve done everything wrong in my life, but perhaps I can still put some of it right. Even help you a little, although I’m not good at this kind of thing. But I want to try. If I’m going to die, then I want to get some things clear before I go. Do you understand? Do you hear me?’ Marina’s words were delivered steadily, and her face was composed.

‘Is this some new trick?’

‘I’ll be waiting for you downstairs. In the taxi.’ Marina did not look back. After a moment Camilla followed her downstairs to the waiting cab.

‘Paddington Station,’ Marina said.

They did not talk on the train as it sped past suburbs and factories, and out into the countryside where cattle grazed in orderly fields, unmoved by passing trains and passengers whose heads were brimming with confusion and anxiety. The house in Burford was small and Camilla was surprised by its atmosphere of tranquillity. Marina showed her to a bedroom at the top of a narrow staircase. The casement window looked out over a tiny back garden lit by the evening sunshine. The lawn was bordered by flagged paving stones and flowerpots. Beyond the garden wall, the fields dipped down to the furl of a river and then rose again towards a tree-lined ridge. A man in a duffel coat and wellingtons was chopping wood in his back garden. He picked up a branch and threw it for his dog, and Camilla smiled as she heard the excited barking. She lingered at the window, reluctant to go downstairs and begin any form of dialogue with Marina. Her suitcase lay unopened on the window seat and she postponed the confrontation by unpacking, putting everything away in a cupboard that smelled of lavender and had a shelf of neatly folded bed linen. When she had made up her bed there was no further excuse for delay.

To her surprise, her mother was sitting back on her heels in front of the stone fireplace, rolling newspaper into tight balls and building a nest of kindling on the top of it. Camilla stood and watched as Marina arranged several narrow logs in a strategic pyramid, and then set light to her creation. She was rewarded by an immediate blaze, and looked up at her daughter with obvious pride in the task she had accomplished.

‘I’ve become rather good at fires,’ she said. ‘We have a nice old chap who chops the logs and leaves them in the shed, so there’s always dry wood. Will you make some tea?’