‘I can’t think how else we might manage. We can’t sell it. Not right now. It would kill him. That place is his life’s work.’

‘I know,’ nodded Penny. She had tears in her eyes again. When would she stop crying?

‘And to be honest, after the start to the year we’ve had, business hasn’t been easy. So even if I could convince him to sell it, the books don’t look as good as usual. We just need a year or so to get all that lined up. Looking strong. Maybe then we could sell.’

Penny tried to think of another way to do it. Hiring somebody else, maybe, or … Well. Maybe those were the options: they hired somebody else, or they hired Penny, who had grown up there, and knew the village and the people and the kitchen and what her uncle had been trying to achieve all along.

She had the edges of a truth at the forefront of her mind, and the faintest notion that it was time for her to step up for her family – the way her family had stepped up for her – lingering on the outer parts of her consciousness. She wasn’t ready to agree to it yet, though. There was Bridges, and Francesco, and her life. But then, as they looped back to David’s room, she got it implicitly: what is all that for if I don’t have my uncle? she thought. And then: Oh, shit.

‘I’m just glad he’s going to be okay,’ Clementine said, sat beside Rima, and opposite Penny and Francesco. She was pale and the circles under her eyes looked like bruises. Penny assumed she looked no better. ‘I need to see him more. I’ve been a bad niece. Daughter. Person. I don’t see him enough.’

‘Hey,’ said Rima, her arm around her wife. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. You do your best. You call him when you’re away, you visit when you can.’

‘It’s not enough though, is it? I should love him harder.’

‘I should love him harder too,’ Penny cried, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘Oh, Clem, I just don’t know what to do. Like, it’s supposed to be a no-brainer: I go and take over the pub. If I loved him that’s what I would do, isn’t it?’

Clementine shrugged, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I can’t tell you what to do on that one,’ she stuttered. Her voice was kind, like she really felt sorry for Penny. ‘Nobody would expect you to uproot your life that way …’

‘Except they would. And if you were the sister who cooked, I’d expect you to do it.’

Clementine didn’t say anything to that.