‘For what? I mean why would he be punished? What did he do?’

‘Perhaps, I don’t know, for being too happy? He said that often – “I am too happy” – when we were working at Jericho, at the wall, or sitting by the fire in the evenings. Silly things. Happiness is composed of trivia, don’t you think?’

‘It can be. Yes.’

‘You are married. You don’t know?’

‘It is not the happiest of marriages. I told you, we are separating.’

‘And the children?’

I know that I laughed. I remember the flash of shock, I suppose, on her face. So I readjusted my face. It seemed a bit cracked. I mean the grin had to clear. It did.

‘They really don’t care much for me. I am at fault, not them. I write. I lock myself away, read, type, I get irritated. I suppose I am a bit unpredictable. Children hate that. They need security in a person; I don’t give them that. Helen, my wife, does. She has sacrificed a career, as she so often tells me, for the family. I don’t. I mean, haven’t. I continue as I was. It really isn’t fair. I see that now. Bad luck all round.’

She nodded absently, half listening, half elsewhere.

‘I’m sorry. I mean for you all!’ She laughed. ‘Fragments everywhere in this life!’ She made a definite, casual-seeming, yet quite determined, move towards the door. The interview, if that is what it had been, was at an end. I put out my hand to halt her.

‘What I don’t follow is this. Why was James the one to be “punished”? Why did he concern himself with his own punishment only? Not you? After all, you were together, so radiantly happy, the house, the land, the wall and all that tra-la-la. Yet he apparently has taken total blame on himself? Is that fair?’

She had almost reached the door but turned suddenly, her arms stiff beside her, fists clenched, face white, eyes blazing, her throat corded with anger.

‘He was convinced, if you insist on this, he was convinced that it was physically his fault. Not mine. He was the father, ergo, he was the one responsible for the terrible deformity in his child. His genes were the cause. He was absolutely convinced that he had sown a malign seed within my body. Nothing would alter this fact. He was guilty. That is why he blamed himself.’

I stood perfectly still, shocked by her vehemence, the outrage in her voice, the tears which had sprung suddenly to her eyes.

‘Forgive me. But, Florence, surely that is not medically so? Is it proven, does anyone really know?’

‘Proven! Oh God! If anyone could tell me! If anyone would! My fault, his fault, the mama or the papa, who, who is culpable? No one knows for sure, no one will say for certain.’ She wiped her cheek, her nose. The tears had spilled.