Outside the front door she stopped and turned to the bay. The heat of the sun beat down on her and the happy cries rose up from the beach. The world went on, while somewhere inside her mother was dying. She paused, feeling that sharp contrast between life and death, between the holiday world on the beach below and the everyday life in Boskenna. Even back in 1962 when she had spent her last summer holiday here, Boskenna existed on a different plain. She had tripped lightly among the intelligent and interesting, the suntanned and the salt-encrusted. That was all she remembered because tears had erased the important bits.

A seagull landed on the lawn and peered at her. The tilt of his head asked her why she was here. Duty she guessed. She pushed a piece of gravel with her toe. Diana and her mother, Joan Trewin Russell, had nothing to say to each other. They hadn’t for years. If Diana were honest this was a sadness she had sought to lose in her work. Travelling the world as a war correspondent had filled the void for years, but now she was slowing down and that left gaps. Unwanted thoughts and questions had begun to seep into the spaces.

Looking at the lawn, a memory of playing tag with her mother flashed in Diana’s mind. She was laughing and so was her mother. Once they must have been close but since her father died over fifty years ago, that had evaporated. Her mother loved Diana in her way. Diana had wanted for nothing . . . except her. Everything changed and she knew it was because of that long weekend fifty-six years ago.

The front door was open, and she couldn’t stand on the threshold forever, as tempting as the view was. George would be around somewhere. Striding in, she put the past aside to focus on what was happening now.

In the hallway the temperature dropped, and she shivered. The newspaper on the large round table in the centre of the hall flapped. Due to her early start she hadn’t read the papers cover to cover as she normally would, but she’d listened to today’s stories on the radio. They were eerily similar to those in her last summer here. She flattened the pages and placed an empty vase on top of it. In 1962 the world had been on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and currently the great bear was roaring again. The world moved forward and thought things would be better, but people never learned.

She peered into the drawing room then the snug, but George wasn’t in sight and she was reluctant to call out. All was quiet aside from a lawnmower and the distant beach sounds. The small kitchen was empty too. There was nothing for it but to head up to her mother’s room. She dropped her bag on an empty chair and took the stairs slowly, trying to prepare. She had seen the dead and the dying, but she knew this was different despite her ambivalent feelings.