She looked at the telly now and I could feel some sort of unnamed worry begin to squirm inside me. It was like she was trying to pick a fight tonight. I thought about her being asked what her bloke did at work and the moment of surprise when she said, ‘Primary school teacher.’ I knew it happened. I’d seen it, right there.

Turning back to me, she smiled, but there was a distance in her eyes. ‘I just wonder what it would be like sometimes,’ she said, ‘to up and go. Make a fresh start somewhere else, you know?’

I made a non-committal sound.

The wine tasted bitter in my mouth now as I finished the glass. It felt like the thing I’ve always dreaded – that she would get sick of me, that I wouldn’t be enough – was prowling outside our door.

IRENE

‘Oh dear, Mrs Copeland, did you burn yourself? Let me get you a cloth!’

Rowan’s voice seemed to come from far away. Irene blinked hard and stared down at the pale brown stain spreading across the beige material of her trousers. She wasn’t hurt; the tea was lukewarm now. If anything, the unpleasant wetness was helping to ground her. She focused on it until her breathing began to slow down. The act of spilling the tea felt lost to her. This was what scared her most about being old; that she would disappear into a warren of moments just like these and not be able to find her way out again.

‘I’m quite alright,’ she said but Rowan was bustling back into the room with a wet sponge and a bunched rosette of kitchen towel. She got closer to her legs than Irene would have liked before she managed to retrieve the items from her. With a stiff ‘Thanks,’ she dabbed at the stain.

Rowan, sitting opposite, gazed at Irene with her big, damp eyes.

‘I’m so sorry if I’ve upset you,’ she said, then, ‘Did you not know?’

Irene merely managed, ‘Well …’

It wasn’t the first time she had heard this, no. But Michael himself told her that he had looked into Liam’s … connections and had to accept that there was nothing to find. Irene had been under no illusions that her youngest son had had his share of trouble and mixing with the wrong people. His caution for a minor shoplifting offence when he was still in his teens had caused the most terrible scene between Liam and his father.

Irene became aware that Rowan was still staring at her. She looked down at the damp cloths in her hand and then placed them carefully on a magazine lying on the table in front of her. She could hear a car revving outside and a clock thunked loudly from the mantelpiece. The perfumed room and the heat were beginning to make her head ache.