‘No, I didn’t. I …’ She stopped. Yes, she remembered, she did. If it was small and white and no harm could come of it. Despite everything, she felt a flare of frustration – Jesus, could she not get a break? Could she not get away with one single, well-intentioned thing? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re right, I did say that. And I do. He’s a lovely man and I miss that. But I can’t pretend, Len. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us. It would be cheating. It would be cheating him.’

Lennie said nothing. She shifted her body again, turning her back.

The dashboard clock read 11.52 when they reached Dunnington Road. The downstairs lights were on, Dennis up again. Lennie had fallen asleep on the M25, head against the glass, but she’d woken up as they’d left the motorway and now she took off her seatbelt, picked up her backpack and got out without a word. The slam ricocheted down the street.

Glancing up as she locked the car, Robin saw her mother backlit in the doorway. She must have sat up to keep Dennis company; she’d known he wouldn’t go to bed before they were safely home. She saw Lennie hug her tight, their two bodies becoming a single silhouette. Help me, Gran, save me from my horrible, selfish cow of a mother.

They disappeared and Robin felt a stab of abandonment. Weird: did she really care if her mother didn’t give her a hug at the door? But as she came up the path, Christine stepped back into the light. The look on her face.

Robin stopped. ‘What?’

‘Love, Peter had a heart attack.’

‘I didn’t want you to know while you were driving,’ Christine said, Lennie curled in next to her on the sofa. She turned the glass of Scotch between her hands, the crystal catching light from the standard lamp. ‘I rang Di to see if I could bring her some things for the fridge but I didn’t get that far. I knew straight away something was wrong. More wrong.’

‘Where was she?’

‘With Kath, on their way back to the hospital – they’d only just got the call. Kath rang half an hour ago with the update, I told her we’d be up. Thank god they managed to resuscitate him.’

‘What did the doctors say? Could it happen again?’

‘Apparently there’s no way of knowing. It’s the infection in the lung, Di said – his body’s under so much strain and it’s just not responding to the antibiotics like they thought. They’re going to add another one but after that, it’s just a matter of hoping.’ She paused, put her arm around Lennie. ‘They’ve been told to prepare for the worst.’

The words settled round them, toxic dust.

‘But he could still be okay, couldn’t he?’ Len’s voice sounded so small.