‘I worry about Simon,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him caught up in all this. He has an academic career ahead of him. He insists on staying with Hannah at the house. I’ve invited her here, but she says she wants to feel close to her mother. That seems morbid. Her father has said she should stay with him, but she won’t go.’

Connie didn’t know what to say. I’m the last person to give you advice about your child. Alice, suddenly bored, got up from the floor and climbed onto her mother’s knee. She put her thumb in her mouth and was almost asleep. Connie stroked her forehead. She was aware of Veronica watching them, almost greedily.

‘How lucky you are!’ Veronica said. ‘It’s a lovely age.’

Conventional words, but with such force behind them that Connie felt uncomfortable. She could tell Veronica longed to hold a small child in her arms. She was about to come out with something easy and meaningless: Perhaps there’ll be grandchildren before too long. But even as the words were forming in her head she knew they would be no consolation. Veronica wanted a child of her own. Flesh and blood, immediate and not once-removed. Subconsciously Connie found herself holding Alice a little tighter.

‘Let’s have some coffee!’ Veronica got to her feet and the tension was broken. Connie thought she was letting her imagination run away from her. It was the stress of the past day, and it had never been a good idea to drink at lunchtime. Now Alice was properly asleep. Connie shifted her weight so that she had a hand free to hold the mug. The smell of the coffee was wonderful, reminded her suddenly of her first holiday in France with Frank. A cafe in the Cévennes. Heat and dust and a post-sex languor.

‘I’m so glad we had this conversation.’ Veronica was sitting very close now, her face poking forward, with the prodding, wading-bird mannerism Connie had noticed earlier. ‘I’m so glad we’ve sorted things out.’

Connie was confused. What had been sorted?

‘You must come again. Bring Alice to play in the garden. And if you need a babysitter, you only have to ask.’

Connie finished the coffee and stood up, setting Alice on her feet. ‘Come on, sweetie, it’s time to go. Wake up, or you’ll never sleep tonight.’ She felt the need to escape the house, and the woman whose switch of attitude was incomprehensible. At the front door she paused. She wanted to end the encounter with a normal exchange, not the sense that she was running away.

‘By the way, did that man find you?’

Veronica frowned. ‘What man?’

‘Yesterday lunchtime someone turned up at the cottage, asking for you. Young, charming. I wasn’t sure if you were in, but I pointed him in the right direction.’

‘Oh.’ With a supreme effort Veronica turned on a smile. ‘I expect it was a friend of Simon’s.’ But before that, Connie had seen her look at Alice with the same hungry desperation.