Later, after Tom comes back with Snowy and they cluster around the little wooden table in the kitchen for dinner – Saffy pulls it out from the wall so there’s room for Lorna – she broaches the subject of the baby again.

‘So have you thought of any names yet?’

‘Not really,’ says Saffy, through a mouthful of bolognese.

‘Will you find out the sex?’

Saffy glances across at Tom. ‘No. We want it to be a surprise.’

‘You do,’ says Tom, good-naturedly. ‘I wouldn’t mind finding out.’

‘I just think it will be a nice surprise.’

‘But if we find out, we’ll know what colour to paint the nursery!’

Saffy rolls her eyes. ‘Ever the practical one,’ she says fondly. ‘We can paint it a pale grey.’

Lorna tries not to grimace. What is it with grey? What happened to colour?

Saffy reaches across the table, takes Tom’s hand and squeezes it. Her daughter is more like her dad when it comes to being demonstrative but the love she has for this man shines from her. It slams home even harder what Lorna is missing with Alberto. In fact, with any of the men in her past, apart from maybe Euan. But they’d been so young.

Saffy puts down her knife and fork, a glazed look in her eyes. ‘I keep thinking about Gran. She should be here, with us.’

‘I know, honey,’ Lorna says gently.

Her daughter’s eyes well. ‘Do you think she’s happy in that place? I worry that she’s unhappy and doesn’t understand why she’s there. That she has moments when she’s scared. Do you think we could bring her here to visit?’

‘It might confuse her. And she’s well looked after there. It’s a good care home, I did my research.’ Saffy has always lived too close to the well, as Lorna used to put it. She was such a sensitive kid. Once on a holiday to Portugal when she was nine she burst into tears at a restaurant when she saw the lobsters in a tank ready to be eaten. It took her days to get over it. She’d worry for hours about a homeless man on the street, or a stray dog.

‘But . . . it’s not her home, is it?’

‘Being here must remind you of her.’

Saffy’s face crumbles. ‘It does. And I miss her.’

‘I do too.’ Lorna realizes, with a jolt, that this is true. When Saffy was born her mother doted on her only grandchild and the two of them have always been exceptionally close. Lorna was pleased they loved each other so much – and she tried, she really did, not to mind being the third wheel when they were all together. They were so alike – she could see that. But while her mother let their differences create a wedge between them, Lorna has always vowed never to allow that to happen with Saffy.