She breaks me off with a wave of her hand.

‘I’m so sorry about Jill. It’s a huge shock.’

Ruth’s eyes mist over like a film has been draped across them. Her fingers fiddle with the edge of a cream doily that sits under a fruit bowl. When she stops they continue to shake. ‘It was when it happened. She got ill very quickly,’ Ruth says, in a repetition of what Annie told me yesterday. ‘She couldn’t get her breath, she said her chest was hurting her.’ Ruth’s hands clench into fists and I can’t help but glance at them. ‘We took her to the hospital on the mainland when the doctor here couldn’t do more. They admitted her to run some tests. I wanted to go private,’ she murmurs, almost looking through me as if caught in a distant memory. ‘She had sudden cardiac failure,’ she says as if she’s uttered the same words countless times before. Her entire speech feels like it’s been learnt by rote.

‘I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it could have happened to her at that age.’

‘She had something very rare,’ Ruth says.

‘What was it?’

‘Nothing I’d heard of. Hypertrophic cardio—’ Ruth breaks off suddenly and turns away, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes as she clamps her mouth shut. I wait for her to go on but she doesn’t finish the sentence. ‘They told me there was nothing I could do,’ she says quietly. ‘Oh, dear me.’ She pulls her hands back to fumble in her pockets for a tissue, which she uses to dab at her eyes. ‘No one’s asked about Jill in such a long time.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.’

‘No, no,’ she says. ‘It’s nice talking about her. It feels like she’s been forgotten. Bob doesn’t speak of her and anyone who knew her won’t – they just don’t—’ She stops again and adds in a whisper, ‘No one talks about her to me.’ She scrunches the tissue, clenching it tight in her hand.

‘That must be hard,’ I say, willing her to open up further. It’s clear the woman needs to talk.

‘It is,’ she cries.

When it seems she isn’t going to go on I say, ‘Why don’t you think they do?’ I hear my counsellor’s voice but Ruth doesn’t notice as she shakes her head.