She sips the bitter tea; he’s forgotten she takes milk. What does she care about how he feels? Words aren’t important after all. They wouldn’t have saved Ash’s life; they won’t bring him back. It’s hard to believe she once set so much store by words, especially his. She can’t finish the tea and gets up. Martin steps forward to hold her, she endures the embrace, too exhausted to move away. When the children thud up the veranda steps she raises her head in time to see Izzy come in and stop short, a flicker of contempt on that smooth young face. Eve pulls away before the other children stream in. Poppy follows close on Izzy’s heels, Blake and then Charley; Sorrel comes last holding Noah close to her chest. He’s much too big to be carried now, she is staggering under his weight. The children kick off boots and shed coats, scattering a shower of little stones that clatter to the floor. They walk silently across the kitchen and disappear. Melissa follows the children in and shuts the door. By then Martin is back chopping herbs. Melissa takes the dustpan and brush from under the sink and sweeps the floor clean.

‘I thought I’d make a pudding for supper,’ she says brightly, straightening. ‘The children will be hungry.’

Eve slips away upstairs again.

Melissa

Melissa is slicing apples at the sink when Sorrel returns to the kitchen a little later. Now she understands why Eve cooked so much, how soothing food preparation can be, how usefully thoughts are blocked. She looks down at Sorrel. Her thumb is in her mouth and she is wearing a tiara crookedly jammed on her tangled hair. Tears are seeping through her fingers.

Melissa kneels and puts her arm around her. Sorrel leans into her wordlessly.

‘Can I stay with you?’ she asks after a while.

‘Of course you can. Are you being a princess?’

Sorrel nods gravely.

‘Where are the others?’

Sorrel’s glance slides to the door. There are children’s voices coming from the playroom on the other side of the hall. Izzy’s is the loudest, Poppy’s chiming in.

Sorrel leans closer. ‘I want to see the donkeys.’

Melissa takes her hand; the skin feels surprisingly rough. She turns it carefully, noting a small round area of dark crust on the palm. A healing graze, a burn?

‘How did you do that, darling?’

Sorrel pulls her hand away. Messing about with candles, probably. Eve always has candles at supper; the children played with them in Greece. She’ll take them off the table, out of harm’s way. She leaves the apple slices under water and finds Sorrel’s anorak from the jumble by the door.