‘Oh – she’s well, I believe,’ Charles said. ‘Though her own mother is ailing and takes a lot of care.’

‘Ah, well,’ Elsie said fatalistically. ‘At least she has someone to care.’

‘True, very true!’ Charles laughed.

‘And you’re getting on all right, being a vicar?’

‘I’m not a vicar, Grandma,’ Charles said testily. ‘I am a Congregationalist, remember?’

‘Oh,’ Elsie said, seeming unimpressed. ‘Yes. Well, same difference.’

The kettle was hissing. There was an air of desperation about the conversation and Margaret looked uneasily at the clock. They would have to start for home as soon as they had drunk their tea and she was already impatient to be off. This whole, strange day felt like a waste of time – a day removed from the real life which she now knew was hers. There was to be no proper healing with Charles. Now she simply wanted to be away from him.

At last tea could be made and drunk. Elsie posed halfhearted questions. He asked after her two sons, who, according to her, turned up now and again. ‘All the men in my family are lions or mice,’ she remembered him telling her. She wondered about Elsie Barber’s sons and how he would describe them. The tea was warming and she ate a couple of plain, stale biscuits and started to thaw out.

Once they were down to the dregs, she began to stir and try to catch Charles’s eye, though he kept looking away, bringing up little topics of conversation. The clock struck five.

‘Charles,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m afraid we really should be on our way. My aunt and uncle will be worried. It’s quite a journey back to Birmingham,’ she explained apologetically to Elsie Barber.

‘Birmingham,’ she repeated, in tones which suggested that Timbuktu would not have sounded further.

‘Right you are – of course. I’ll fetch our coats.’ He jumped up, then cried out, his face contorting in pain. ‘Aaagh!’ He bent over, rubbing fiercely at his calf.

‘What’s wrong?’ Margaret asked, hearing his moans of pain.

‘It’s nothing – just a cramp – it’ll pass in a moment.’

‘Don’t worry – I’ll fetch the coats,’ she said, keen to be away.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ he said, muffled. ‘I really will be all right in a moment.’

She went out into the hall, which felt chill after the warm back room, and felt her way into the room at the front. It was almost dark but there was just enough light to see, in blocks of grey and black, the furniture in the room. It felt cold and unlived in.