After a while, she rolls on to her stomach and looks at him. ‘I miss Paul,’ she says.

‘Me too.’ The sun passes behind the cloud, just for a second, reminding Cathy she’s here, in England, not there, where the sun blazed, baking the body they buried. ‘He’ll be here in a bit,’ Tom says. His words convey misunderstanding, but his eyes don’t.

‘I miss living with Paul,’ she says explicitly. ‘With a kid.’ She thinks of the dinosaur mural she painted across the wardrobes in her spare room that she’s left there. Of how Paul rushed up the stairs to see it every time he visited. How she hopes it will never be painted over.

‘I know.’ Tom sits up and eats a strawberry, evidently thinking. Soon, he will come to a decision in that slow, careful way of his.

‘There they are,’ Cathy says. Frannie is in the distance, hair piled on her head, sunglasses over her eyes, Paul’s hand in hers. He’s over half her height now, a child more than a baby, and Cathy’s heart rolls over as he comes into view.

‘Oh no, we’ve got double strawberries,’ Frannie says when she reaches them. She gives Cathy a hug.

‘You can never have too many strawberries,’ Cathy says, gesturing to the pile. ‘We have doughnuts too.’

‘Good.’ Frannie takes one out of the packet and halves it to share with Paul.

She sits down on the blanket, cross-legged, her maxi dress spreading taut across her leg. Paul keeps his hand in hers. He now has knuckles instead of dimples. ‘Cheers,’ she says, raising a glass. ‘I saw Lydia, just then,’ she adds conversationally.

‘Did you – where?’

Frannie licks the sugar off her lips and jerks her thumb behind her. ‘Down there. With her baby.’

‘The father is some guy she worked with,’ Cathy says.

Frannie chews while thinking, swallows, then says nothing for another minute more. ‘I mean –’ she says.

‘I know,’ Cathy says. Tom frowns, not following, but he wouldn’t be able to. Frannie, Cathy and Joe have always been able to communicate in this way.

Frannie’s and Cathy’s eyes meet. Lydia wasn’t Joe’s family. Not really. Not in this way, this primal way where love is unconditional. Where crimes are forgiven and covered up for each other, no questions asked. You can’t invent that. You can’t manufacture it. It just is.

They go back to Frannie’s cottage after their picnic.

The evening has turned dank, even though it’s the height of summer. The sky is pale and gloomy. The sunset will turn it white to grey to black, no colour to it. It’s strange for Cathy to be back at the cottage. Joe’s was sold recently, and hers too. She lives with Tom now, works at a different practice. The space is nice. The space to be herself, to forget, to move on, to let her sister and brother be each other’s favourites if they want to. It’s a shame their parents thought Cathy betrayed Joe, but she finds she has a new freedom without them.