George took the lemons now and added a slice to her drink.

‘Thanks.’ Her hand wasn’t as stable as she would have liked. Being here was getting to her. It was a place that should feel welcoming, but everything annoyed her because it wasn’t familiar in the way it should be, despite her repeated dreams. A room like this spoke of family gatherings, Christmas carols around the piano and shared history with the portraits on the walls. Maybe they had had that once, but she couldn’t recall. All she had was a sensation like something she might have witnessed on television and not in person. Among her old diaries and journals, she still had a letter from Mrs Hoskine, the housekeeper, saying how much she missed her, and that she understood how hard it must be for Diana not to come home to Boskenna. That implied that she had loved this place once.

‘So, George, how long has my mother been ill?’

He looked up from his whisky, startled. ‘I would imagine the cancer has been there silently for years.’

‘She’s done nothing?’ The first sip of the drink tasted mostly of gin. The alcohol hit the back of her throat and her eyes watered.

‘No.’

Part of her rebelled at this news but another part respected it. ‘Hospice care here at Boskenna?’

‘Yes.’ His shoulders fell.

George and her mother had been married for forty-two years. He would be, and probably was already, devastated. Grieving could start before the loss. This she knew too well.

‘How often do the nurses come?’

‘Mostly twice a day now.’ He looked out to the garden.

In the infrequent phone calls with her mother, George’s devotion to the garden, and especially his passion for the camellias, always came up. Diana recalled he’d cultivated a few new ones.

‘Have they said how long?’ She glanced at him regretting she had phrased the question that way. He wasn’t a warlord but a frail old man.

‘I haven’t asked.’ His hand clenched the silver fox head on his cane. His knuckles went white.

‘What will you do?’

Sad eyes looked at her and despite her dislike, her heart reached out to him.

‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what I’ll do without her.’

Diana swallowed and looked away. She didn’t want to feel for him. She didn’t want to care. She had done that once before. Not caring was the only way to cope.

11

Joan

3 August 1962, 5.45 p.m.

Below on the edge of the lawn, Tom and Allan are side by side, their stance so similar. Allan’s hair is darker with more wave than Tom’s mid-brown straight fringe which falls onto his forehead if he hasn’t tamed it with hair crème. Both still whippet-thin, not yet touched with the fullness of middle age, unlike many of their peers. Allan is the more handsome of the two, also the more charming. But Tom’s eyes, their deep Cornish sky blue, are the more compelling. They take a step away from each other. Discord. In the past they had moved in unison and I was the third wheel, or so I felt. But now Tom plays that role happily, maybe even more comfortably.