‘Well, Leanne, it sounds like you’ve done astonishingly well. You are one brave warrior of a woman. We’ve also completed a full tox screen, which with your permission I’ll pass to social services once the results come back. Now, if you’re ready we can talk about what happens next. Alternatively, I’m happy to wait until another day. Today’s been a lot.’

‘You think my girl is going to wait another day to find out what’s going on here?’ Leanne twitched the corner of her cracked lips.

The news was a mixture of terrible, then maybe not so bad, then potentially even worse. Leanne had been incubating the virus inside her for a long time. While hepatitis C was generally treatable with medication, over a decade of the virus combined with years of heavy alcohol use was more complicated. Livers were wonderful things, with a freakish capacity to regenerate, but they had their limits. The unanswered question was, had Leanne’s reached hers?

If so, then the best she could hope for was treatment to prevent things from deteriorating any further.

The worst? Cirrhosis, liver failure, cancer.

The moment that Leanne broke was when the doctor told her that they would have to test Joan.

Once the doctor had moved on to the next patient, Joan returned, and we explained what we could, as gently as possible. I went to find a coffee and some comfort food, leaving an eleven-year-old girl curled up in the arms of her brave mother.

20

We arrived home from hospital in the early evening. I went to let Nesbit out into the back and found a bouquet of wild flowers on my doorstep. The giant daisies, yarrow and purple teasels that were sprinkled throughout the forest and meadows beyond our hedge, tied with gardening twine.

Please pass on my good wishes to Ms Brown. Being without one’s mother can be difficult. Having something pretty to look at may in some small way help.

Right. This ridiculousness had gone on long enough. I took the ten steps over to Middle Cottage and rapped on the door, transferring some of my sadness and anger into the forcefulness of the knock.

I waited for the customary two minutes, then knocked again. And again.

Eventually, after cupping my hands against the door and yelling that I wasn’t going away until he opened it, the back door creaked open and Ebenezer stood there, glowering.

Today, his T-shirt said, Does my head look bald in this?

‘I came to say thank you for the flowers, but if I’m going to pass on your good wishes, I need to know your name.’

He stood there, his eyebrows so long that I could barely see if there were any eyes hiding beneath.

‘Like I said two months ago, I’m Ollie.’

Just as I was about to crack and stomp back home, he replied.

‘Ebenezer.’