‘We can’t deal with hypotheticals,’ he said eventually. ‘We don’t have a daughter so we can’t answer that.’

‘Well, do you have a sister?’

‘We did,’ he replied in a sorrowful tone, looking down at the carpet.

‘You did?’

‘When we were growing up, yes,’ he said. ‘But not any more.’

‘Oh shit,’ said George, looking momentarily humbled.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Beverley. ‘Did she … did she die? Oh, I’m sorry, Wilkes. That was insensitive of me. I didn’t know. Elizabeth never said.’

‘No, she didn’t die,’ replied Wilkes, shaking his head.

‘Then what happened to her?’

‘She got cancelled,’ said Elizabeth.

Beverley blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, she got cancelled.’

‘I heard what you said. It just didn’t seem to be a collection of words that, placed together in an otherwise reasonable sequence, made any sense.’

‘Our sister was cancelled late last year,’ explained Wilkes. ‘So, naturally, we haven’t spoken since. It’s sad, but there’s really nothing we can do about it.’

‘Your sister was cancelled,’ said George, trying out the phrase on his tongue. ‘I’m sorry, but is she a television programme, perhaps? Or a train timetable? A subscription service of some kind?’

‘No, she’s a human being. Well, she was.’

‘And how does one go about cancelling a human being, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘Well, what happened was, late last year Frances tweeted something about Greta Thunberg that caused a bit of an uproar.’

‘The little Swedish girl?’ asked Beverley. ‘I don’t know why, but she gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

‘Frances tweeted that she thought Greta should be in school completing her education,’ explained Elizabeth. ‘Not travelling around the world shouting at grown-ups. And that was that.’

‘That was what?’

‘That was how she got cancelled,’ said Wilkes.

‘But I still don’t—’

‘Oh, Mother,’ said Elizabeth, throwing her hands in the air. ‘It means that she lost all her followers, no one talks to her any more and she’s considered a pariah. Like, in your day, when someone was sent to Coventry. Her friends have all abandoned her and she’s not welcome in polite society. Like Harvey Weinstein, say. Or members of the European Research Group.’

‘And all of this because she expressed an opinion?’

‘The wrong opinion,’ said Wilkes.

‘The wrong opinion,’ repeated George, laughing again as he opened another bottle of whisky. ‘The powers that be, the Great Unelected Consciences of the World, didn’t approve of what she said and that was the end of her. How Orwellian. Have you ever heard of “civil death”, any of you?’

All three shook their heads.

‘Of course not. So much for the expensive education I put you through, Elizabeth. Back in medieval Europe, the moment a person was convicted of a crime they lost all their civil rights. And this was known as civil death. More often than not, it meant that anyone could simply kill them without consequence because, officially, they no longer existed. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?’

‘Sounds awful,’ said Wilkes.