The phone was on its table by the front door, in almost exactly the same spot Jean’s parents had had the phone in their own house. In the final few seconds before she reached the bottom stair, Jean had a momentary flashback to her father bemoaning its installation. What’s it going to be next? A brass band in the front room? He’d refused ever to use it; if the house was burning down, Jean’s mum used to joke, he’d probably write the fire brigade a letter. Imagine if he’d lived to see this world, where everyone carried a phone in their pocket, or bag. Well. Almost everyone. Not Jean. She was her father’s daughter, still.

‘Hello?’

‘Mum? I’m sorry to wake you up.’

So it was Sally. It wasn’t a policeman or someone from a hospital, as it had been on the awful night when Jean’s sister, Pam, had died – suddenly, incomprehensibly, even though she was still describing her leukaemia as a ‘nuisance’ and had bought them concert tickets for the next week. It was Sally, in Melbourne. And so perhaps after all this was going to be good news. Perhaps … Jean had almost stopped hoping for it. But women did wait a lot longer these days, didn’t they: they had careers first. Which Jean had mixed feelings about, but, well, the world changed, didn’t it?

‘There’s a situation with James,’ Sally was saying, and Jean’s daydream evaporated.

‘What do you mean, a “situation”?’ Sally talked so much like a businesswoman, these days. Was a businesswoman, of course. You just never got used to it, with your own kids: having them speak to you like bank managers discussing your overdraft. Not that Jean had ever been near going into her overdraft.

‘I’ve had a message from James.’

‘What sort of a message?’

‘A text, Mum.’ Sal’s voice crackled with impatience and Jean had the feeling, more and more familiar these days, that she was the junior one. ‘He’s made a threat – and it could be some sort of joke, or … but he’s talking about …’

Even when Sally had explained it, Jean couldn’t understand it, not really. Even when Sally had hung up, promising that she’d find a way to get hold of James, telling her things were going to be all right and that she’d call back as soon as it was sorted.