The family now had two of its members undergoing psychoanalysis – though Moira barely qualified as a member. Bessie’s analyst had made a pronouncement shattering to Laura: her little girl’s real problem wasn’t a fattie’s desire to be a sylph, but a deep-seated insecurity.

How has my adored child got that way? thought Laura. Did it begin when I was often working away from home? But I’ve made up for that since I married Jake. Is it due to my taking care not to show Bessie the favouritism she doubtless expected? And do Jake and I know any of our children better now than we did before Jeremy let the cat out of the bag?

Laura now watched over Bessie obsessively and such was the tension at home, it was not surprising that Janis and Jeremy spent as little time there as possible. Bessie’s teachers had displayed sympathy and support; seemingly she was not the first anorexia case they had encountered among their pupils, though the others were older girls. And their reason for starving themselves less complicated than my daughter’s, Laura thought with distress, given the willowy shapes of the young models in TV commercials, even those advertising chocolate, a succulent bar dominating the ad – and what a conflict that sets up for a girl with a sweet tooth.

What was anorexia but another side effect of the consumer society in which the setting up of role models was part of the hard sell and had a lot to answer for?

Laura, though, now knew she could not blame her child’s condition entirely upon that, but was in some way answerable herself. Meanwhile Bessie was on the downhill path and seemed not to care that she now resembled a currant-eyed scarecrow. Indeed, there were times when Laura sensed that she was relishing being the source of anxiety she had become to her parents.

Laura transferred the pudding mixture to a baking tin and found she had not switched on the oven. The hell with it! Bessie wouldn’t eat it and Janis and Jeremy were invited for dinner at Matthew’s tonight. This was the housekeeper’s day off, and Laura felt like a caged lion alone with its frustration and fruitlessly lashing its tail.

A moment later she was dialling a Manchester telephone number.

‘Uncle Nat?’

‘That’s Laura, isn’t it?’

‘None other.’

‘I sometimes confuse your voice with Marianne’s.’

‘How’re you doing?’

‘As well you didn’t ask what am I doing. The answer would be I’ve turned into an idle old man. I used to wish I had time to spare for dipping into my library, but when you have the time—’

‘I seem to remember, though,’ said Laura, ‘on one of my visits north finding you doing a bit of gardening.’