‘Sorry!’ she said every time she reclaimed Kes, only to find he’d sloped back a few minutes later.

‘Sure, it’s no bother.’

‘I’m Loo Car’s assistant manager!’ Kes announced, making Luca laugh.

Pax had noticed the easy way the duo rubbed along from day one, another strand to her complex jealousy. Knock-knock jokes had flown back and forth between them in the past week, along with silly voices and at one point she was certain she’d heard Luca singing. They brought out good qualities in each other; Kes was less physically aggressive and more focussed around Luca, and, like the sun coming out after days of dark skies, Pax had seen far more of O’Brien the jester, Luca’s reserve drawn out by Kes’s determined thirst for knowledge and laughter.

‘Luca grew up in a big pack,’ Ronnie was quick to point out when she reappeared with a reddened phone-call ear to find Pax in a flour-covered pinny, spying on them picking out pony hooves. ‘Super with kids.’

Unlike me, Pax reflected anxiously. Parenting was something she always felt pressurised to get right, like exams, a systemised process some people had the knack for, while others like her had to work very hard at it. Being passionate about one’s subject wasn’t enough. She loved Kes fiercely, but as Mack – who had often made her feel incapable as a mother – was fond of saying, ‘parenting is so much more than just loving’. She was too passive, he’d told her, too childlike herself, an orphan to maternal instinct.

‘Kes needs normality,’ she said it again, thinking hopefully about the little village school, about the bright-eyed children she’d seen covered in paint like at Holi festival.

‘We both know there’s no such thing. His father’s an utter shit, mind you.’

‘Isn’t he just?’ Mack was now only communicating through his parents and solicitors.

‘I meant Luca’s father. Total crook. Makes Johnny seem saintly.’

‘But you keep telling me Daddy was a good man. He was just a drunk one.’

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’ Ronnie’s eyes stayed fixed on Kes.

‘How so?’

‘He had his secrets, like we all do.’

‘I don’t want to know.’ Pax felt her throat tighten. ‘Whatever it is, it died with him.’

‘I thought you might say that.’

Sensing her mother was about to launch into one of her positive-spin spiels about the misunderstood brilliance of Johnny Ledwell again, Pax fished out her kitchen timer. ‘I must check my scones.’

‘I’ll do it!’ To her surprise, Ronnie marched off towards Lester’s cottage. Not for the first time that week, Pax was reminded how much of a bossy stranger she remained at times, how fractured their bond. That must never happen to her relationship with Kes, she vowed as she went to help him sort through the pile of tack Coll had come with.

Five minutes later, when her kitchen timer went off, she realised she could smell burning.

‘Not the scones again!’ She belted inside to find more char-black pucks pluming smoke in Lester’s Rayburn. On cue, the smoke alarm went off. Tears welled in her eyes once again, furious at herself for entrusting the task while she daydreamed. ‘Mummy, where are you?’