‘Will you come in for some dinner, Luke?’ called my mother to my dad’s young apprentice. Luke Signal loitered outside on the hard-standing, waiting for the formality of an invitation. He nodded at me, sheepish, as he stepped inside. I’d taught Luke for his GCSEs just three years earlier, my first official class when newly qualified, aged twenty-four. I had reprimanded him for the way he tied his tie, the grubbiness of his homework, his difficulty with spelling. His younger brother, Michael, almost sixteen, was in my current class, and always raised his hand, an answer ready. He was a real show-off. It seemed impossible that the two boys were related.

‘You should fill your belly, Luke,’ muttered my father as they wrestled free of their boots and shook off their wax jackets, Luke’s two sizes too large for his wiry frame. ‘You’ll need it for our night ahead on the lamp.’

‘Ah, Peter, no!’ My mother threw down her tea towel and was off. Did my father not remember that he was supposed to be retiring? What on earth was he doing still volunteering for evening work? She would brook no argument about the severity of the fox infestation, because there was Mary, there was Luke now, both trained up to take over the nighttime lamping.

At the end of her speech, my mother’s voice became tender. ‘I just want to spend more time with you, Peter,’ she said.

When only family were present, she would go on to suggest a holiday, a cruise or a visit to Paul on the mainland. When she’d first proposed these things, I’d assumed them a provocation. Look how angry I am, Peter! Listen to what blasphemous things you have me suggesting! But I began to wonder, after the way she’d grasped my hand that evening, if she truly meant to go.

Four places were laid at the table. As was the custom on All Hallows’ Eve, one setting was for the most recently departed family member – in this case, my paternal grandfather, John, whose heart had given up on him four years previously. This was precisely the phrase my mother used – ‘his heart gave up on him’ – and I was beginning to understand the expression viscerally. I couldn’t shake the sensation that our extra setting was not for Grandpa John, but for my brother, Paul, or for a handsome teacher maybe – two people who had not died but, in their different ways, had slipped through my fingers.