The day was calm and warm for October, light filtered thinly through a sheet of cloud providing a crisp clarity to the autumn colours that drenched the swathe of trees. The forest floor was still wet from the rain of the previous day, a mulch of damp leaves underfoot as they made their way through the quiet terrain, separating into pairs, Abi and Mark walking briskly ahead while the two girls hung back. Every now and then, Mark turned to shout out encouragement, trying to chivvy them along, until Abi said:

‘Just leave them. Let them have their time together. They’ll catch up with us eventually.’

She herself would have preferred it if the girls had stayed home. Even at a distance of several paces, Beth’s presence was a constant reminder, and Abi felt she couldn’t shake off her own anxiety. Mark, catching the trace of irritability in her voice, said quietly:

‘Are you all right?’

She exhaled. ‘Tired, that’s all.’

He didn’t reply, and after a few minutes trudging along, she began to feel his silence was less contemplative and more interrogative.

‘I know you think I went overboard last night,’ she said at last. ‘But I worry about Beth in ways I never do about Eva. And when she does things like that, I just get so anxious, and it comes out as anger, frustration. Of course, it’s myself I’m angry with really, not her.’

‘Why you?’

‘Because I feel I’ve failed her, I suppose. Failed to protect her, or – as in this present debacle – I’ve failed to guide her. I mean, she’s supposed to learn these things from us – how to be a good citizen, how to be a decent human being.’ She shook her head, pushed her hands deep inside the pockets of her coat, the frustration rising up inside her again. ‘When they were little, we always used to say to them: be kind to the other kids. Did that fail to register with her? Or did we just stop saying it and it slipped down her list of priorities?’

‘By that argument, we’d be reciting a whole list of commandments to them every morning; they’d never get out the door. We do our best, Abi.’

‘I keep thinking about the way Helen Bracken spoke to me yesterday. Like she couldn’t fathom how I’d let things slip with my own daughter, like I’d failed to understand what was really going on with her.’

‘You think she was judging you?’

‘God, yes. We all do it, subconsciously or not. And I imagine it’s part of her job, trying to second-guess the parenting skills of people like us whose kids are wild.’

‘Beth’s not wild!’ he laughed, more from annoyance than humour. ‘She doesn’t give lip to teachers. She does okay academically – not as well as Eva, granted. On the whole, she’s a good kid.’