As she stared at Norma across the tee box, Kelly wondered why neither of them had given a thought to how Gordon would react to their schemes. How had he made himself such a bystander in his own drama that his mother and his wife should decide his fate like the dictators carving up Poland? What passed between her and Norma now, it seemed to Kelly, was the mutuality of hope: despite so many of their actions, they both did love Gordon, and love would be enough to make up for everything else. Such as the action they were about to agree on.

‘It’s marriage,’ Norma said. ‘Like golf. You’re in too far to get out.’ As Norma looked at her, Kelly felt an overpowering pull of, if she was not mistaken, sisterhood. It was a play of such vicious cunning—Norma would consider Kelly’s plan, but only if she got back together with Gordon—the woman was a disguised devil, so Machiavellian that Kelly could only admire her. It was a cunning that came from suffering. When she looked into Norma’s fox-golden eyes, Kelly saw the toll in happiness that Norma had paid, as a woman and as a mother. Against that toll, what Norma was asking from her was a tiny fraction.

‘You’ve outplayed me,’ Kelly said.

‘Well …’ Norma batted her eyelids.

‘But I guess nothing can be perfect.’

‘I used to think we had a perfect little family. But you live with what happens, not what might have happened.’

Kelly hadn’t planned to end the conversation like this. In the way she had war-gamed it in her head, she would have brought Norma to a certain point and then let gravity take its course, let Norma feel she was in control, allow her plan to become Norma’s plan. But Kelly now saw that she was a child playing against an adult. It was Norma’s plan. Norma’s pain, greater than Kelly’s could ever be, was her fuel. Kelly had not only been outplayed, she had been outlived. It was Norma who was ending the conversation, at the point of her choosing.

‘I’ll do my best,’ Kelly submitted.

‘Ultimately it’s about Ben’s welfare. Now, I think you should play your shot.’

Kelly hit a beautiful five-wood onto the middle of the green. Norma was quiet, for the first time that day, as they drove down the cart path by the little dam. Kelly remarked on the pretty lilies floating in the water, but Norma said nothing. As they drove up the rise towards the green, Norma said, ‘Who’s that waving?’

‘I don’t know, I’ve got to go and putt.’

‘Here, she’s coming this way. She doesn’t look happy. Maybe she’s hooked her ball across into the dam. Oh, she’s calling out to you! Kelly?’

But Kelly was crouched over her putt.