Fran racks her brain. How would Geraldine answer? Her mind immediately flits to her mother. What’s her purpose in life other than moaning about her husband? Gossiping about the other women in the local area? Judging her daughters and pouring scorn on their life choices? Fran rests her elbow on the arm of the chair and her gaze drifts beyond Tom to the naff painting on the wall. She’s got that wrong. Her mother judges her, not Jenna. Whilst Fran was a brittle child who had the tears beaten out of her at boarding school, Jenna was softer, more malleable. With her parroty little expressions and her willingness to please it was no surprise that Geraldine had chosen to keep her at home rather than send her away.

‘You’re finding it hard to answer that question, aren’t you?’ Tom says, and Fran looks at him in surprise. She’d completely forgotten he was even in the room.

‘Yes,’ she says, although she can’t remember what the question was.

‘You’re quite young,’ Tom says, ‘to retire. I imagine caring for your late husband gave you purpose too, in its own way.’

‘Hmmm,’ Fran says. Lying doesn’t come easily to her. Nor does acting. There’s a very good reason she was always cast as sheep, donkeys and trees during primary school productions.

‘You’re struggling, aren’t you? With your grief.’

‘It’s hard to grieve when someone is taken from you unexpectedly.’

‘His death was sudden?’

‘Very sudden. I … I wasn’t expecting it.’

‘That must have been hard.’

‘Very. You don’t expect to lose people, particularly when they’re so much younger than you.’

‘There was an age gap?’

‘Yes. Twelve years.’ She searches his face, looking for a reaction, for a muscle twitch or a squint of the eye, some hint that he knows that she’s talking about Jenna, not her fictitious late husband, but all she can see is concentration and compassion.

‘It’s the regret that’s hit me hardest,’ she says. ‘All the things I didn’t say, all the conversations we never had. I don’t feel I knew … him … as well as I should. I didn’t take the time to ask him how he was or what he was feeling. I was too caught up in my own life.’

‘And where do you feel that regret?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘In your body,’ Tom clarifies. ‘Where do you feel the regret?’

‘In my brain, because that’s where thoughts originate.’

‘Close your eyes.’

Fran looks at him in alarm.

‘I just want to do an exercise with you. Everyone holds their pain in different parts of their body. You may think it’s in your brain but let’s see if it’s anywhere else.’

Fran deliberates, casting an eye over the room for any potential weapons that could be used to clunk her over the head while her eyes are shut.