Comes down to this: something to blame, something to point the finger at, something we might be able to ‘fix’. It’s not only reductive, it’s bad science. He lowers the cheese knife he’s been waving around and shrugs, sheepish. Ah, see, lecturing again. You shouldn’t have got me started.

He uses the knife to slice a pear, offers a wedge to Laura.

To get back to your original question: no, I don’t think you’ve passed on to Cooper some altruistic death-wish gene. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? Look, leaving aside the question of compassion—which is what I think of when your grandmother speaks of ‘not standing by and doing nothing’—sacrifice is kind of hardwired into our culture.

She picks at the pear, peeling off bits of skin.

All those men who went to war, like your grandfather. Both of mine, too. A lot of them were just kids, thought they were off to see the world, but many of them understood what they were doing and were ready to die for their country. Who can say where a conviction like that comes from?

Well, there was a lot of social pressure on them, she says slowly. But patriotism … I guess it’s a kind of cultural inheritance. Like religion. And superstition, for that matter. Tribal. What was that term Dawkins invented for ‘cultural genes’?

Memes, you mean? Gideon snorts. Now, if you want reductive …

But it’s uncanny. I can’t get past it. This, this LINEAGE. Meggie, Steven, my mother. And now Cooper, ignoring everything he’s been trained to do, going back into that house when he knew …

Laura! There’s no issue of lineage here. What about you? You’ve never—he splays his hands, palms up, mock dramatic—I don’t know, thrown yourself in front of a mad dog to save a snail, have you? Seriously, your son wasn’t listening to some ancestral voice in his head. He was doing his job. And saving a child’s life.

He wasn’t doing his job, Gideon. That’s just it. He didn’t know where the girl was. He didn’t even know if she was actually in the house. He just ran into the fire, blind.

Gideon’s voice is low. You don’t know that.

Laura’s silent, crumbling a piece of bread between her fingers.

Look, Cooper may have acted a bit recklessly, he continues. He probably did. But if he’d followed the rules, that little girl would be dead. Simple as that. Like Brukie’s Sandy. He looks at her over the tops of his glasses. Laura, if he’d followed the rules, he’d have done just what the old man did.

She stands abruptly, jolting the glass, spilling wine on the blanket.

Gideon joins her at the water’s edge.