Judith took a sip of tea and Suzie could only imagine what scrapes the student Judith might have got up to. She smiled at the thought.

Judith saw Suzie’s smile.

‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘But when I left Oxford, the rest of England wasn’t quite as advanced. Women were still expected to keep home, to marry well, to help their husband in his career, and none of that appealed to me. Not one bit. But what could I do? And that’s when my mother told me about her aunt in Marlow, who was something of an invalid and was looking for some live-in help.’

‘This would be your great aunt Betty?’

Judith smiled at the mention of her name.

‘We hit it off right from the start. You see, she’d never married and was fiercely independent. The only thing we ever argued over was Philippos.’

‘Your husband.’

‘My husband. He worked for a Greek tour operator and I’m afraid I fell for him hook, line and sinker. He was so very handsome. Strong in mind, word and deed. And he was a terrific sailor. I don’t know the first thing about boats, but he’d take me to the sailing club at Bourne End, and it was so thrilling. Whizzing across the Thames on a little sailboat, the wind in my hair. You see, Philippos had grown up on Corfu, and he was one of those people who had the sea in his soul. He could read the wind and the tides. Really, our affair was hugely romantic.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Twenty-six when we met. And I was still twenty-six when we married. In Corfu. That’s when Betty and I fell out. You see, she said Philippos was a wrong ’un. That I couldn’t trust him. Oh, you should have seen the arguments we had in this room,’ Judith said, looking sadly about herself. ‘But I was in love, and as far as I could tell, Betty was being selfish. She knew she’d be losing her home help if I married. She was just trying to poison my mind so I’d never leave her. Fool that I was.’

‘She was right?’

‘More than you can imagine. I moved to Corfu once we married, and things went wrong almost from the start. You see, Philippos was a drinker. And he’d always been fiery, and somewhat controlling. But he only revealed himself fully when he got home.’

Judith stopped speaking as she lost herself in her memories.

‘It was bad?’

‘It was bad,’ she said simply, but Suzie could see the oceans of pain those simple words covered. ‘But you make your bed in life, don’t you? Sometimes you just have to lie in it. I endured.’

‘What happened?’