Then she said, ‘Suzi. When you asked me about – my husband. There’s something I wanted to tell you. When we first met, he was . . . with another woman. I’m always ashamed to tell people that.’

Why was she telling me this? Did she know? ‘Oh?’ I managed to get out.

‘I realise now I shouldn’t be. Yes, we met in less than ideal circumstances, but that relationship was dead, and he and I – we were so happy until I lost him.’ She was crying suddenly, her face twisted and ugly.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t judge me?’

‘No. Of course not.’ I’m the same, Nora. I’m the same. I nearly told her then, and the yearning to speak the words was so strong I could almost feel them piling up in my mouth. But I had gone all this time telling no one, and I knew any leak could be catastrophic. All the same, I might have, because there is nothing so lonely as a secret you can’t share, if I hadn’t realised at that moment that Poppet was gone.

Elle

Elle

She’d been so good for years now about not wallowing in the past, but the appointment with the doctor had made her weak. All kinds of memories were returning, flashes slipping through the walls she’d built over the years.

Ellie! I’m frightened!

No, she wasn’t going to think about Sebby. Or Mother, or Father. But all the same she found herself going into one of the spare rooms – a room that should have been filled with toys by now, soft pastels, chiming music boxes, plush fabrics – and taking down the box from the top of the fitted wardrobe. It was an old shoe box, from a pair of Jimmy Choos she had once worn on stage, always afraid she would trip as she made her way out. He would never look in there – he had no interest in what he called ‘girly’ things. Inside were photographs. A handful had survived, and when she fled Elle had swiped them, because now they were all she had. The only proof that these people had existed.