‘This is not a traditional mourning necklace,’ he said, ‘for they are usually made of dark jewels. But I suppose I thought of you when I saw it. Well, you could wear this for any reason. As a mourning necklace or as a trinket, or just to have something of mine, if you like.’

And then there was a moment when I thought he might kiss me, but he did not. Instead he asked me if I might walk out with him tomorrow after work, to the golf links.

When I got home with that necklace on, Joan gawped and gawped.

‘Look at this, Ma,’ she cried. ‘Maggie’s got some fine jewels about her neck.’

‘Oh, Maggie,’ breathed Ma, ‘those look like real gems.’

‘Not paste, like Spencer’s ring,’ agreed Joan. ‘Those are the real deal. Was that Mr Munroe? Are you to marry him? Can you marry, Maggie – what with you being married before and now legally dead? Do you still need your glass ring? I could have it now. Mr Munroe will buy you a gold one.’

She has never let up about that bloody glass ring.

‘You can have the glass ring when I am dead, Joan, but not before. I have no idea of Mr Munroe’s intentions, for all he said was that he should like me to wear his poor deceased ma’s necklace, and I think it covers my rope-mark quite well and I might wear it as a mourning necklace for Susanna.’

‘And why should you cover your mark?’ asked Ma in a low voice. ‘It is part of you, and speaks of your past and all that you have survived.’

‘I feel I am branded,’ I said. ‘And my mark is my punishment for the mistakes I have made. It makes me feel ashamed, Ma.’

‘Do not wear the necklace to hide your shame. Of all the reasons to wear it, do not let that be the one. Wear it to honour Mr Munroe’s request, and to let him remember his ma, and to let you remember Susanna, and to give this piece of jewellery a new lease of life. But mostly wear it because it suits you, my girl, because it makes you sparkle.’

I said I would.

‘It does make you sparkle, Maggie,’ said Joan. ‘She looks bonnie, doesn’t she, Ma?’ My sister had never said that before.

‘She looks bonnie, but best of all, she looks content,’ agreed Ma.

So now as I wait for Mr Munroe, as he ties up his loose odds and ends in the office for the weekend, I touch my mourning necklace and consider that if he should ask me to marry him, my answer would be yes; and as I am legally dead, I need not worry about whoever I was married to before.