She guessed it was supposed to have been a dramatic send-off, but the tide or the currents must have been doing something strange because the tiny little pieces of her husband had floated in a greyish-white scum on top of the silt-laden water and lapped around their ankles. It had been horrible. She couldn’t have thought of a worse ending to an already unbearable day.

She’d been so bewildered that she hadn’t even remembered about the little yellow bungalow until she was halfway back to Gayle and Richard’s. The whole journey back the words she’d collected ready to say to her mother-in-law circled in her head, and now she felt like one of those unexploded Second World War bombs. The tiniest touch, the slightest wrong move and – Boom! – she would detonate.

She pulled into the drive behind Richard and Gayle. Getting out of the car was an effort, and not just because she was stiff from driving; she felt utterly exhausted and her body was rigid with tension. The front door of the house was open, Gayle standing beside it, ready to shoo her guests inside. Anna approached the threshold but stopped before stepping over it.

‘Anna?’ There was a whiff of irritation in her mother-inlaw’s tone and Anna felt her blood pressure rise. She couldn’t look at Gayle. She couldn’t even look at the hallway through the open door. She was only just about holding onto her last shred of self-control.

If she went in there and had to make polite conversation after all that had happened that afternoon, that bomb inside her would go off. She was just so angry. Horribly, horribly angry. But having a meltdown over cucumber sandwiches and teacakes wasn’t going to help anyone this afternoon.

‘I’m sorry…’ she muttered. ‘I think… I think I’ve got a migraine coming.’ And before Gayle could say anything else, Anna ran back to her car, jumped inside, and reversed out of the drive.

She knew Gayle would be staring after her as she drove away. What about the finger sandwiches, Anna? What about the vol au vents? But Anna didn’t care about the sodding vol au vents.

She drove home with her fingers tight around the steering wheel, jaw clenched, resisting the urge to use the accelerator to vent her anger. Hold on, she told herself. Just a little longer, then you can close your front door behind you, sink against it, and let it all out.

Almost an hour and a half later, thanks to a snarl-up around junction five, Anna hauled herself from her car and stared at her house. Just the sight of it almost brought tears of relief to her eyes. The walk to her front door seemed to go in slow motion, but she finally put the key in the lock, opened the door and then banged it closed behind her.

Thank God.

She sank against the back of the door and waited for the emotions to start flowing…

But nothing spilled out, nothing exploded. There was no pounding of fists on the tiled floor of her hallway or shouts of rage echoing up the stairwell. She opened her mouth, giving permission for the howl of fury she’d been keeping inside all the way back from the beach to emerge, but all she could hear was her own shallow breathing. She closed her eyes, giving tears a chance to gather behind her lids, but when she opened them again, they were as dry as Gayle’s pork and sage stuffing.