‘You seemed to feel guilty for not coming back to live here.’ My brother turned to look at me and our eyes couldn’t help but meet. ‘When you told us you were going to be a piano tuner you looked sort of apologetic about it.’

‘Did I?’

‘You did. Grandma told you, “There’s no reason to feel sorry. Don’t worry,” she said, “about whether you should take over here or not.” She might have said the same thing to me, too.’

Taking over – what? I was about to ask, but kept my mouth shut. We were both born and raised here. If there was anything to inherit, hadn’t we already inherited it inside ourselves?

‘You always talked so big,’ my brother said. ‘It kind of surprised everybody around you.’

I looked at him, startled. ‘I did?’

When had I done that? Talked big? It was my brother who used to brag. Making my mother and grandmother happy by describing some brilliant future that awaited him.

‘Don’t you remember?’ he asked. ‘How worked up you were, saying how the sound of the piano connected up with the whole world? The whole world’s not something people usually say. I haven’t even seen the world yet.’

‘Neither have I.’

But this is the world, isn’t it? I can’t see everything, but it is the world.

‘You’re always dealing in big things – the world, music and so on,’ my brother said, and he laughed in a cloud of white breath. ‘But this, here – this isn’t the world. It’s just a mountain. Since I left this place, I’ve never come across anywhere else quite so remote or out of the way … Wow, it really is freezing!’ he added, rubbing his hands. ‘I’m going to catch a cold if I stay out here, so let’s go in,’ he urged, and I stood up.

‘Grandma said she didn’t understand the piano or music, but since you were small you had always loved the forest – and even when you lost your way among the trees, you’d find your way home. So you’ll be fine, she said.’ My brother walked off after that, without glancing back. He seemed to be a bit worked up.

We got to the door of the house and he suddenly turned to me and said fiercely, ‘You’re always like that – so easy-going on the surface but hard to read underneath.’ His face had reddened. ‘Grandma was always so proud of you.’

I was about to say it wasn’t true, but the words stuck in my throat.

‘I hate this. Why did she have to die? With her gone I have no idea what to do.’

His voice was breaking into sobs, and deep-seated emotions began to well up in me. ‘I hate it too,’ I said, though it didn’t sound like my own voice.