‘Fine.’ Her mother put the paper in her back pocket and left the kitchen. Disaster averted. However, if she wasn’t careful someone would find out and these were the last people in the world she wanted to share her failure with, absolutely the last people. Her humiliation would be complete. Marrying Paul and lending him the money had seemed a good idea at the time. But these things do, like ditching the internship and spending the summer here. Big mistake. Would she ever learn?

From the kitchen window she watched Alex walk into the cottage.

‘No,’ she said aloud then looked about to make sure no one had heard her. She would not think about Alex Hoskine and the plans they had had. There were more important things to think about. Gran, for one, and her mother’s peculiar behaviour. She could do little about either one. She closed her eyes and wished. Wished that for once that she could do something right and help things rather than mess them up.

She put some eggs on to boil and thought about her mother’s life and her life within it, or outside of it of late. The one thing that constantly represented her mother for her was seeing a passport. She had several in case one was tied up in a visa process and always had one on her person. In her bedroom, one drawer was permanently filled with black knickers and bras, grey t-shirts and dark grey utility trousers. Not quite monotone but not far off, especially with her dark hair. These days her hair sported big streaks of steely grey. Once Lottie had asked why all the clothing was so boring and laughing, she’d said, ‘It won’t show the dirt.’

Ever-practical was her mother and never there. Lottie assumed she was loved. She’d had her after all, but she’d never made it to a school play or a hockey match or a speech day. However, she’d attended every parent-teacher meeting. That had been important to her even if it hadn’t to Lottie.

Rolling her neck from side to side her heart contracted, remembering the taxis that waited at the end of term. While other girls ran into their parents’ arms, she was piling her kit into the back of an anonymous car. The upside had been Boskenna. If her mother hadn’t been home, which had been most of the time, then Lottie had come here.

‘Oh, you’re making lunch.’ Gramps sounded startled to see her. He grabbed the back of a kitchen chair. ‘The nurse has popped back in.’

‘All OK?’

‘My darling girl, I wish I could say it was. I called them.’ He shook his head. ‘She seemed so distressed.’

Lottie dried her hands before hugging him. His weight, not that there was much of it, settled against her and he cleared his throat.

‘I don’t think we have her for long.’