She looks around the kitchen. Everything looks clean, tidy; nothing out of place. Max takes the bags into their bedroom and Cara fills the kettle and gathers mugs together.

‘Tea?’ she asks.

This is another irritation, being offered tea in her own home, but Judith can see that it would be churlish to refuse. She makes an effort to pull herself together, to remember that Cara has lost her husband, though in her view it was an odd relationship. Despite Philip’s responsibilities they both behaved rather like a couple of teenagers. Perhaps that was because they had no children. Judith had never quite had the courage to ask outright why not, although she’d dropped a few hints. Apparently a miscarriage early on in their marriage had left Cara unable to have more children, although no details were ever given.

‘It’s none of our business,’ Max said, whenever she mentioned it, but at least, thinks Judith rather bitterly, if Cara had children then she’d have somewhere else to go now.

‘How’s the house-hunting going?’ she asks, making her voice bright and interested. ‘Seen anywhere nice?’

Whilst Cara describes some of the places she’s seen, Judith hopes she won’t buy in Salcombe, although if her own plan works out it won’t matter much. The thought of this raises her spirits and makes her feel more generous towards her sister-in-law. She takes her mug of tea and brings her phone out of her bag so she can show Cara photos of the new baby. Cara makes all the right noises and for the moment there is harmony.

Max, coming into the kitchen, is relieved to see it. He’s never quite understood the antagonism that exists between his wife and his sister. Judith, studying to be a teacher when he first met her, has always disapproved of the fact that Cara has no formal training in anything, but it’s much deeper than that. It seems that Judith resents Cara just as some women resent their mothers-in-law. From the beginning she was irritated by the closeness between Max and his sister, by the bond formed by those early, lonely days. Although he’s tried to explain his anxiety for the small Cara, left alone with their unreliable and occasionally violent mother, Judith could never truly understand. She lives within her own reality; she can’t connect with feelings and actions that don’t chime with her own, and dismisses them as unworthy or weak.