Or would they force her to go on? Make her live until she was an utter stranger to herself? She glanced across at the pillbox on the bedside table, its segments like the chambers of a gun. If she were to take a whole week’s pills in one go, with, say, a large Scotch, would that do for her? Could she be sure of it? Nights were the worst, of course. Days she could still endure, despite the occasional snap of temper, those moments when she thought why bother, why go on if going on just meant more of this. She knew now what turning your face to the wall meant, and it tempted her, saying no to the fag-end of life, yes to oblivion. If that’s what it was. Oblivion. But not quite yet. There were still good times. Little unexpected pleasures. A card from an old friend. The greenness of grass. Some nonsense on the radio that made her laugh. Even the sound of Mrs Samson singing to herself in the kitchen, a fifty-year-old woman singing like a girl. You couldn’t explain it to people without sounding gaga. But when the light began to fail, however lovely the evening, she became nervous and plucked at herself. Drawing the curtains didn’t help. Night thickened behind them, pressing at the glass like floodwater.

She opened the book, wondering if another page might tempt her to sleep. It was such a delicate little book, hardly bigger than her hand. Dark blue binding coming unstuck at the spine. Very fine paper – wartime paper – that tore if you turned the page too quickly. Her father had given it to her. Desmond Wilcox. Captain. And because he had not written an inscription she had done it herself, in black ink, on the page opposite a picture of Rosa showing Cornelius the precious tulip at his prison door.

For Alice from Daddy. April 29 1953.

He had bought it on one of his business trips. In Bath perhaps, or Wells, or Salisbury. There were businesses once. Gravel. Irrigation pumps. Even some scheme to do with growing mushrooms in an old barracks near Chard. But she was not very old before she understood that ‘business’ was mostly a euphemism for taking off on the motorbike, a machine like the skeleton of a greyhound, oily black, impossibly loud, pouring smoke like a bonfire when he started it. She had a memory of him – though in fact it was the memory of a photograph – sitting astride the motorbike on the drive, leather jacket, old parachute boots, goggles that made him look like the Baron von Richthofen. Never said when he was coming back. Hours. Days. Just her and her mother in the house, listening. On a still day you could hear the engine all the way to West Lavington.