When they were back at the house, Rick advocated that he and Tom serve drinks, and Martha and Willow should help their mother to act as waitresses and pass round trays of food.

‘Bit bloody sexist, Rick,’ Ellis heard Martha say as he shook hands with a complete stranger who claimed to have been one of Rose’s students. ‘Why can’t Tom and I serve drinks, or better still, Willow and I do it together?’

‘It makes no odds to me,’ Rick said with a shrug, ‘I was only trying to be helpful.’

The death-stare Martha threw him should have stopped Rick in his tracks, but he merely smiled at her. Which probably infuriated Martha all the more. There was clearly some friction going on between the pair of them; Ellis had noticed it earlier when they’d all arrived. It wasn’t anything he could specifically put his finger on, but there was definitely something. Naomi evidently thought so too because he’d noticed her frowning at something Martha said to Tom, as though they were having a joke at Rick’s expense. Or maybe she just thought it was inappropriate on the day of Rose’s funeral for someone to be making a joke.

Lucas had offered to help serve food as well, working alongside Willow, and the pair of them were weaving their way through the mourners standing around in small groups on the lawn. There was, it had to be said, nothing particularly mournful in the manner of the guests, not now they had a glass in their hands. But that was the way of these things, people always bucked up once the formality of the funeral service was behind them. It was, Ellis hoped, just as his mother would have wanted.

‘How are you feeling?’ asked Naomi, appearing at his side and with a glass of wine for him.

‘Not so bad,’ he said, taking it from her. ‘Thanks for this,’ he added, indicating the garden and everyone gathered there.

‘There’s no need to thank me, I wanted to do it for you.’

‘Is it a painful reminder of Colin’s funeral?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not really. His friends at the sailing club insisted they arrange the wake. I had very little to do with the organisation of it. They thought they were doing the right thing, but it actually made me feel surplus to requirements.’

He smiled. ‘In many ways I feel the same right now.’

She looked at him, concerned. ‘I’m sorry, would you have preferred to have done this at the pub, like you originally wanted?’

‘No! What I mean is I know only a handful of people here today, it’s as if I’m a guest myself.’

Leaning into him, Naomi kissed his cheek. ‘It’ll soon be over,’ she said quietly. ‘Another forty-five minutes or so and they’ll start to drift away, especially when the food runs out.’

She was right. Within the hour, and with just one slightly curled-up smoked salmon sandwich and a scattering of cake crumbs left, the last of the mourners had taken their leave.