Eileen began to sit up, and the glass slipped from her grasp, bouncing off her lap and smashing into a million pieces on the quarry tiled floor. Her lap was full of water that dripped through her polyester skirt like she was straining it through muslin. The cat shot straight past them into the hall in a ginger blur of panic, and the sounds of broken glass and dripping water reverberated in Patrick’s ears. He knew he should get a cloth, a dustpan and brush, make soothing noises, but he didn’t want to break the spell. He was so close to it all making sense, finally.

‘Eileen?’

She turned to look at him then, her eyes rheumy and heart-broken.

‘Sean is – was – my actual son. My youngest child.’

Patrick opened his mouth to speak but she carried on, flicking ineffectually at the water in her lap with the side of her palm.

‘Yes I know I told you I only had one child. But I didn’t. I had Penny first, five years earlier in 1970. I didn’t mean to. I was only seventeen, and I was in love. I met her dad, Horace, at Butlins. He was the first black man I’d ever talked to. I didn’t mean to get pregnant of course, and I didn’t realize I was until I was six months gone, and so was Horace. Long gone, he was. I gave the baby up for adoption. My mum and dad were furious with me, ’specially when I admitted the baby would be half-caste. Oh, you can’t say that these days, can you? Mixed race. Load of bollocks . . .’

A trace of her spirit re-entered her voice, just a trace. Patrick sat back in horror, the implications of Eileen’s story slowly beginning to make sense.

‘Then what, Mrs Philips? Or is it OK for me to call you Eileen?’

Another brief nod. Patrick wordlessly handed her a tea-towel and she arranged it on her lap to soak up the water, like she was in a restaurant and it was a napkin.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said, her voice once more dropping to a whisper. ‘I didn’t know that her adoptive parents had called her Penny. I’d named her Tracey. I tried to forget about her, married Sean’s dad in ’73, had Sean the next year. He was a nice man. Hugh was his name. He died when Sean was seven, of an aneurysm. Never knew about Penny. I still miss him. Unlike that black bastard, excuse my French, but I never liked the coloureds after that.’

Patrick tried to hide a wince at the blatant racism.