‘It’s Matthew whom my heart breaks for,’ she replied crisply, ‘in which I include his having you for a father.’

Arnold turned on her like a raging bull. ‘So speaks the aunt my son has always looked up to! But instead of taking the stand I did about his aberration, what did you do? Supported it, that’s what!’

He glared at Lyn. ‘Like his loving mother did. And I sometimes had to laugh about me ending up the outcast. I’m not laughing now, though, and I hold you two as much to blame for the retribution that’s finally come to prove me right as I do that bastard Pete!’

‘If you want to follow in the footsteps of our late father and brother, Arnold, you’re going the right way about it,’ Marianne said quietly.

‘That would suit me fine.’

Arnold glanced at a framed photograph of his daughter, composed and smiling. Who would have dreamed, when that picture was taken, that Margaret would one day enter a convent and the door clang shut on her contact with the world outside for all time.

‘What have I left to live for?’ he said.

‘Certainly not me. That’s been plain for years,’ said Lyn.

Arnold added as though he had not heard her, ‘I shan’t be able to hold up my head in public when the news gets out.’

Lyn’s nerves finally snapped. ‘Even though his son has a fatal disease, Sir Arnold Klein doesn’t stop thinking of himself! Nothing has changed and I hate you, Arnold!’

Such was her hysteria she began pummelling him with her fists. ‘I could kill you! Not for what you’ve done to me, for ruining both our children’s lives!’

Marianne dragged her away from him and led her to the sofa. Never had she seen her brother look so shocked. But people rarely knew their effect upon others, and especially not those as self-righteous as Arnold had become.

‘Did you hear what my wife said to me, Marianne?’

‘I would rather not have heard any of what you’ve said to each other.’ Marianne stroked Lyn’s awry hair. ‘What I now want to say to both of you is enough with the histrionics. Apportioning blame might be an emotional release for you two, but it won’t help Matthew. He needs you now where he’s never really had you – side by side supporting him together.’

Arnold said after a silence, ‘They discharged him from hospital this afternoon, and you-know-who had the chutzpah to ask us to leave them alone together this evening.’

Marianne forced herself to be patient. ‘What you’re calling chutzpah, Arnold, was a very understandable request. If you don’t want your son to depart this life believing that how he lived it was more important to you than he himself, you are going to have to show him the understanding he’s yearned for and never received from you.’