‘Thank you,’ Kate said, as Rose reached the door. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘With any luck, you won’t find out for a while, because I intend to hang around for as long as I possibly can.’

‘You’d better.’

Rose slipped out again. Kate ran a deep bath and tried to relax into it. But neither the hot water, nor the tea, nor the moonlight did much to alter the basic physiology of her body, which felt as if it was vibrating constantly.

Rose returned with a gin and tonic. ‘You probably shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure it’ll do any harm.’

Kate took a sip. ‘Christ! What did you put in it?’

‘Five parts gin.’

Rose went back to her cooking and Kate came down twenty minutes later as supper was being served. She felt quite drunk and consequently played little part in the conversation, which, in any event, didn’t cover much of substance. They mostly talked about what they would do tomorrow.

It was at this point that Kate’s mother chose, incomprehensibly, to pipe up. ‘Where is Stuart?’ she asked.

There was a stunned silence. The children stared at their food. ‘Stuart went away,’ Rose said quietly. ‘You know that.’

‘Where to?’

‘Russia.’

‘Russia? Why on earth did he want to go there?’ She turned slowly to her daughter. ‘Was he running away from you?’

‘That’s enough, Lucy,’ Rose said. ‘Would you like some more chicken?’

‘I don’t understand. Why did he leave?’

Kate nodded at Rose to indicate that she could and would handle it. Her mother always had the ability to rile her, if nothing else. ‘Stuart is still my husband and the children’s father, Mum, so I’d be grateful if you’d drop the subject.’

‘Well, I did warn you.’

‘About what?’ Fiona asked.

‘Leave it, love,’ Kate said.

‘I just want to know what Granny warned you about.’

‘Oh, you know what. Your mother is awfully difficult.’ Lucy looked from Fiona to Gus and back again. ‘You both know that. She drove him away. I knew she would. I told her she’d never be able to hold on to a man.’

Even by her mother’s standards, this attack was so vicious and brazen as to take Kate’s breath away. But that didn’t stop the rage exploding inside her head.

‘I think you should go to bed, Lucy,’ Simon said. ‘No good is going to come of you sitting here with us at supper in this mood.’

They all turned to him. Simon was normally emollient, generous, munificent, steady. None of them had ever heard him talk like that before. Even Lucy was a bit taken aback. ‘That wasn’t a request,’ he added, smiling.

Lucy put down her knife and fork, thrust her plate away and left the room. Rose waited a few moments, then pushed back her chair. ‘I’d better go and see if she’s all right.’

‘Thank you,’ Kate said to Simon.

‘It’s my pleasure.’

‘Sometimes, I think the Alzheimer’s is actually just a front to allow her an old age full of the pleasure of dispensing poison as and when the mood takes her.’