‘It’s no bother.’ She whispered the words almost as if she were afraid that he would change his mind.

‘Thanks. Yes. Look, Mum … I have to say a lot of things and I may not get round to saying them.’

‘It’s all right, Laurence. Just come home – that’s all we want. I’ll leave the lights on in your house for you. I wouldn’t want you to be going into a dark house. If you want to come on up to us, do that, but suit yourself. I’ll see you soon. You can say as much or as little as you want. It’s a long enough drive home. Take it easy.’

‘Yes. Tell Dad I’m sorry.’

‘You can tell him that yourself. It’s good to hear your voice, son. I feel ten years younger. Goodbye for now.’

Slowly he put down the receiver. He looked across the room to Pansy, in her usual place by the Aga. ‘I think we’ll go home.’ She smiled at him.

‘Well, glory be.’ Clara was standing in the doorway behind him.

‘I rang my mother,’ he said.

‘Where’s the doctor?’

‘He left about ten minutes ago.’

She came into the room and stood looking slightly distracted. ‘He was right,’ she said. ‘The coffee was disgusting.’ She picked up the dirty cups and took them over to the sink. ‘So, he talked some sense into you?’

Lar shook his head. ‘No. He didn’t say anything much at all.’

‘That’s the way of him. He’s a blotting-paper sort of person; he soaks up other people’s woes. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Is that blasphemous? It’s very much the nature of that man.’

She emptied the remains of the coffee into the sink and ran the tap for a moment. She put a hand into the splashing water and rubbed it over her face.

‘So, you’re going back to the war zone.’

‘Home. You can be very unhelpful. It’s no longer a war zone. Technically we have peace. At this moment.’

‘I mean your own personal battlefield. I know that you haven’t told me what really happened to Caitlin and the baby …’

‘Moya,’ he murmured.

‘Moya. Yes. I don’t know why. We all have our reasons for keeping things secret. I haven’t told you a damn thing about me either. None of that matters. You’re a nice man and,’ she smiled at him, ‘you have a nice dog. Maybe if we had both come clean to each other we might have fallen into each other’s arms and tried to push misery away that way.’

‘I …’

He felt his face getting red.

‘You’re …’

Her smile became a grin. ‘I’m not your cup of tea, I know that. But it’s amazing what can happen when you unburden yourself to someone. When you find someone else in the black hole with you, the obvious thing seems to be to reach out to whoever it is. It’s never a solution to anything, merely a few moments of oblivion. Fucking for oblivion’s sake. My mother would disapprove.’