‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head again. ‘It’s just so sad. I thought of you, up that place on your own, having to go through it all. I cried a bucketful when my husband told me.’

‘Do I know him?’ I asked. ‘Your husband?’

‘No, no. But your neighbours, Mr and Mrs Parker, they let people know what had gone on. It’s a small place, even with the airfield and people passing through. People hear things quickly.’

I thought of the Parkers. Her, with her serious face and eyes like Roman coins. Him, with his bad wig and his hunched shoulders in a suit three sizes too big. They’d descended on me after the doctor left. Could they do anything? Did I need help? Was there anything they could get me or anybody they could contact? I’d wanted none of it. They’d never taken the trouble to get to know me or my boy while he was alive and there was no chance I would let them have a part of his death.

‘Is your son buried here?’ asked Felicity, quizzically.

‘He was cremated,’ I said. ‘I scattered him places he liked.’ I gestured around me, remembering his little plump legs kicking at the air, laying on his back and smiling, gummily, with a face he had yet to grow into, on the brown summer grass at my side. ‘I scattered him here.’

‘Cremated?’ asked Felicity. There was something like disapproval there. Something else, too.

‘It felt right.’

‘People get buried around here. I’m surprised I didn’t hear. That sort of thing can be a scandal.’

I felt my expression change. Forced myself not to let the temper out. I didn’t know this woman well enough to give a damn about upsetting her but I knew that if I started shouting, I might never stop.

‘It’s nobody else’s business,’ I said. ‘He was my son.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Felicity, suddenly looking aghast at having spoken so freely. ‘Truly. You and your husband must have been through so much. And with him being away so often …’

I nodded, sparing her the embarrassment of having to finish the lie.

‘I’m Felicity,’ she said. ‘Mrs Goose, really.’

‘Felicity,’ I said, surprised. ‘I knew a Felicity at university. Flick, we called her. Do you get Flick?’

Her face broke into a beam. ‘Never! No, I get the full title, or Phyllis, to those who think the name’s too fancy. Flick! Well, I never.’

‘I’m Cordelia,’ I said. ‘From King Lear.’

‘Where’s that?’ she asked, interested.

‘No, the play. Shakespeare. The name’s from there.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and did not seem to realize she should be embarrassed at her lack of knowledge. ‘Mrs Hemlock, yes?’

‘I’m fine with Cordelia. I haven’t got used to the Hemlock yet.’