Neil looks at him over his glasses, ‘This isn’t about Purity, is it?’

The clink of teacups against saucers stops. Yvonne desperately tries to think of a subject change.

‘She’s gone full time for the charity her sister was involved with,’ Cynthia says.

Neil turns to his wife. ‘Really? Well, there you go then, Kiama, mystery solved.’

‘Which charity?’

‘It’s a big one. They link people on gap years with local hospitals and schools. You know the sort. She runs one of the houses where the volunteers stay, but I don’t have a clue where. I could find out for you?’

Neil laughs, ‘Why? It’s irrelevant.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Kiama says. ‘Maybe I want to know. Maybe I care about what happened to her.’

Neil throws his fork on the plate. ‘You think you’re the only one who lost something? That you’re the only one finding all this difficult?’

Yvonne tries to catch Cynthia’s eye, but she stares down at her ruined lunch.

Kiama rises from the table. ‘Excuse me,’ he says and walks off into the hallway.

Everyone looks at each other and Neil mumbles, ‘He’s still the same, always so quick to judge, to tell us what we should be feeling, how we should be acting, who we should employ.’

‘I think,’ Yvonne says, ‘that he’s still a bit jet-lagged.’

‘You don’t need to make excuses for him. We know what he’s like. We get it on the phone too. Whenever we talk, he’s always in a huff about something. It’s hard to know how to speak to him. And that’s why we don’t bother.’

‘But this isn’t like when you talk on the phone,’ Yvonne says. ‘He’s made a big step coming all this way. He really wants to reconnect with his life here, with both of you.’

‘I can’t believe how much he looks like Lewis,’ Cynthia says again.

Why does she care so much about who he looks like? It doesn’t make him any less Emma’s child just because he doesn’t share her features. ‘He’s your grandchild,’ Yvonne says, ‘can’t you at least try and be a bit more understanding?’

No one speaks.

‘Why did he ask you to come with him?’ Cynthia asks finally.

Yvonne looks to the hallway for Kiama’s return. ‘For moral support, I guess. He was scared.’

‘But we’re here. We’ve always been here for him. We could have offered him all the support he needed,’ she says, now tearful.

Neil stiffens. ‘He hardly knows us, Cynthia.’