Sarah felt limp with relief when they left the house. She longed for the whole visit to be over, to reach the normality of her own home. The girls had dinner and then took themselves back to the drawing room for a ferocious game of Scrabble that made Sarah laugh again.

‘A typically jolly evening at the Broughton-Smiths.’ There was resignation in Camilla’s voice. ‘Mother lives in a fantasy world that poor Daddy can’t seem to penetrate at all. Maybe it’s just as well. If she had to face real life she might disintegrate altogether.’

‘You don’t seem to be able to talk to each other very well,’ Sarah said cautiously.

‘There’s one thing I’ve promised myself.’ Camilla stood up abruptly and Sarah saw that her hands were curled into tight fists. ‘I swear I’ll never be like them. Never. I’ll go to any lengths to be different. Come on, let’s go to bed.’

They were putting away the Scrabble board when they heard the front door opening.

There was a murmur of voices in the hall. ‘Keep quiet,’ Camilla whispered. ‘Otherwise we’ll be trapped in another skirmish.’

‘I’m going to have a brandy,’ George was saying. ‘Do you want to join me?’

‘Perhaps. If you’ll stop lecturing me.’

They moved into the study, leaving the door open so that there was no way for Camilla and Sarah to reach the staircase without being seen.

‘I’m not lecturing you, Marina. Our daughter’s friends are very important to her, and that’s something you haven’t quite grasped.’ George’s tone was placatory. ‘I think you should be less disparaging about the van der Beers. You were perfectly willing to let them take up all Camilla’s weekends and half-term breaks over the years.’

‘I couldn’t have driven that distance on those awful, muddy roads. My migraines—’

‘Saidi would have driven you up there.’

‘To stay in that dreary club, and talk to thick-necked farmers and their frumpy wives with their tight perms?’

‘You could have tried talking to your daughter.’

‘Camilla should never have been sent to a school with people like—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Marina! The world is full of genuine, normal people that you can’t even recognise.’

‘Genuine and normal like you, I suppose.’ The words came out like drops of acid. ‘I’ve seen enough of the world from your viewpoint, George, and I’ve decided I’m safer within walls of my own construction.’

‘But you never think of Camilla. Never. We only have one child, Marina, and—’

‘I was hardly likely to have any more children, George. You saw to that. And I tried with Camilla. In the beginning I tried so hard.’ Marina was crying. ‘I never wanted her out of my sight. But you criticised me for that too.’