She thinks about this for a moment, then reaches out and tucks her arm into his. They sit companionably on the wall, side by side, and listen to the birdsong in the trees beyond.

Slowly, he gains her trust, a little more each evening.

Like a fish hauled through the water on a hook, not realizing the hook is there, lodged and ready to pull.

She tells him about the baby boy. A shocking truth to admit, made more shocking by the way she just blurts it out, without warning or signal.

They are in his kitchen, and he is sluicing water in their now-empty teacups, telling her about a time when the children were small and he had taken Mark to the shops, and ended up leaving without him. ‘I simply forgot for a few minutes that I was a parent. That I even had a child,’ he says, with amused recollection. ‘It was only for a few minutes, and I went back and got him as soon as I realized. But, my God, the amazement of it! This little boy, entrusted to me, and I’d forgotten all about him! And when I told Charlotte about it, do you know what she said?’

He turns to tell her, but stops when he sees the look on her face. The frozen stillness of it. Shock in the eyes, like she’s just witnessed an accident. And then she puts her hands up and covers her face with them, a horrible liquid sound escaping her mouth.

‘What? What is it? What’s wrong?’ he asks, coming and taking her by the shoulders, guiding her to a kitchen chair. It seems such a natural thing for him to do now – touching her in this manner.

He can feel her trembling beneath his fingertips, and is shocked by this naked display of feeling. She is usually so reserved. So graceful and composed. The storm of emotion has come over her without warning. She sits in the chair, and between sobs he hears about the babysitting job, the phone-call asking her to stay on, the parents arriving home, the child dead in his cot.

‘My God,’ he says, holding her hand across the table. ‘It wasn’t your fault, my darling,’ he says softly, as she sniffs and shudders, struggling to bring her breathing back under control. ‘It was a cot death – utterly tragic, but they happen and no one is to blame.’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. A bleed to the brain, they said.’ Her words come out in a rush and he can hardly make them out. Her eyes flicker around the room, unable to settle, her arms hugged tightly around her chest. ‘They kept asking me questions, over and over, but I just couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t!’