‘Cara,’ he says, ‘yesterday you talked of Philip’s secrets. You used the plural, but you only told us one of them. What was the other one?’

Cara looks at him with surprise, almost with gratitude, as if she is glad that he has become so close to her that he noticed her deliberate omission, and that he cares enough to ask. She hesitates, as if she is searching for exactly the right words, and then she says simply: ‘Philip was in love with Max.’

For a moment Sam can’t take it in and Cara watches him sympathetically, accepting his astonishment.

‘How difficult it is,’ she says, ‘to tell other people’s secrets. But I shall be glad to be free of it all. I was in shock still, after Joe’s death and the discovery that I was pregnant, when Philip first told me he was gay but I hadn’t realized that he was in love with Max. He’d always loved him, of course, but in the early days I was too young to understand it. I just accepted that he and Max were like brothers. Philip was always so sweet to me. And ultimately, when I saw the truth, it made a bond between us. We needed each other. Ours was such a strange relationship, but it worked. We loved each other and we both loved Max. He never knew, of course. Max is a simple soul and accepted the fact of our marriage and was glad of it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sam says inadequately, trying to cover his embarrassment. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘Yes,’ she says quickly. ‘Yes, you should. I’m glad. It’s not good, bottling things up.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘No, it isn’t,’ and suddenly he finds that he is telling her about Shanghai, about the children that he taught, and even, finally, about Ying-Yue, and how he’s been divided in his loyalties, unable to commit.

There is a silence when he finishes.

‘And now?’ Cara asks at last.

‘I know now,’ he says.

‘Good,’ she says. ‘Go for it.’

He smiles and repeats her own words. ‘D’you know, I think I might just do that.’

After Sam and Cara have gone, Hal and Fliss take Honey up on the hill.

‘I think she’ll come and stay, don’t you?’ Fliss asks. ‘What a terrible tragedy and how awful to keep it a secret all these years. It was a shock when she just came out with it like that. Like a dam bursting.’

‘I think it’s just as much a tragedy that she and Philip married,’ says Hal. ‘I can see how it happened but it simply reinforced the awfulness of it all. Terribly claustrophobic. Never talking about it, never letting it achieve any kind of acceptance and then letting go, has simply kept it as a nightmare in her mind.’