Who walks into a house and has a bath? she thought. It was like he had arrived at a hotel. She heard the water rushing from the taps as she turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows. Up in the eaves the ceilings sloped. Liv had redone the room more than once in the ten years since Bea left home, and nothing of her childhood remained. The walls were walnut-panelled now. It was no more strange or painful to be in this familiar-unfamiliar room than anywhere else.

She went into the bathroom. Dan had taken off his T-shirt and was very slowly tipping bath foam into the water, and watching it as it poured. He stirred the water intently with his other hand, then put the glass stopper back in the bottle, wiped it and returned it reverently to the shelf with the others. He watched the bath running for a few more moments, stirred it again, then turned off the taps. In the quiet, he undid his jeans and pulled them off, and then his pants and socks. He kicked them out of sight, so they wouldn’t disturb his view, and lowered himself into the hot water. Consciously, gracefully, he went under, with the wordless sounds of a man in heaven. Coming back up with bubbles on his head he sluiced them from front to back, and rubbed his face, luxuriating.

‘Nice,’ he said.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Bea. She turned to go.

‘Babe.’

She stopped.

‘We should talk. About the money. Get it out the way.’

She nodded. ‘Whenever you like.’ She left the room.

They didn’t talk that day. He was waiting for her to broach the subject. She meant to, but found she couldn’t speak. It was enough managing being home, and spending as little time in the evening with her parents as she could. It wasn’t hard to avoid Liv, who was on the phone constantly, enlisting party planners and friends, and Griff retreated to his study. They all went to bed early.

‘Are you sad, babe?’ said Dan, in the face of her quietness.

It was wrong to use grief as an excuse for the distance between them. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’