The clock on the mantelpiece chimes. The dining room is reassuringly familiar. The same dark orange curtains and green geometric wallpaper. David’s cello leans in the corner. An old gramophone stands on the parquet floor, its surface covered with photos of Marina doing ballet and music and art; attached to climbing ropes and suspended on a rock face; wearing a wet suit ready to plunge into a lake; visiting Stonehenge with Ruth and her friends one Midsummer’s Eve.

Ruth cuts into her thoughts. ‘How about that second-hand boutique you like?’

Marina looks blank. What has she missed?

‘I knew you weren’t listening. I was suggesting a shopping trip.’

‘Do you mind if we don’t? I need to get on with the work I told you about.’

‘Ah yes. The Polish lady in Tooting Bec.’

David sets down his cutlery and glances across at the two of them.

‘So, how did it go?’ says Ruth evenly.

‘It went well, thanks.’ She keeps her tone casual, paying attention to her food, transporting a forkful to her mouth.

‘And did you go to Harrington Gardens?’

David coughs. Marina fidgets. ‘Yes,’ she admits, ‘I wanted to see how it looked.’ Her eyes shine and she waits for the guilt. It’s always been like this – a feeling of ingratitude whenever she alludes to her birth mother.

‘I knew that’s what you’d do.’ Ruth’s voice is soft and that makes it worse. ‘Are you planning to go again?’

Marina lowers her eyes. ‘Yes, maybe, but only if you don’t mind.’

There is a pause before Ruth stands. She walks around the table and rests her hand on Marina’s shoulder. ‘Of course I don’t mind.’

Marina leans back, catching the familiar scent of sandalwood. David comes over too. ‘Do what you need to do,’ he says, before kissing her cheek and leaving the room.

They hear him walking through to the kitchen, opening the door. He will work in the garden as he always does, leaving Marina and Ruth to talk.

Ruth gestures for her to follow and they go into the bedroom where they sit together like they used to on the huge brass bed. ‘Do you remember,’ says Ruth, taking her hand, ‘that time you went to London?’

Fifteen years old. A wet and miserable day in November. She had left without telling anyone, caught the train to Paddington, the Circle line to Embankment, the Northern line to Tooting Bec. She’d never been to London alone and had felt like a runaway hurtling through the Underground. At Tooting Bec she’d followed her A–Z to Harrington Gardens, cold and tired, yet buoyed up by the idea she would learn about her past simply by dint of being there.

She hadn’t – of course – and had returned home with a sense of failure. It had taken twelve years before she had visited again.