She turned to the fridge in search of milk. There was time for a quick cuppa, she reasoned, since who knew how long Lucas would be? Fifty years was a lot to get off a chest. As she moved around, faint strains of laughter floated down through the low rafters overhead, filling her with a fresh wave of grateful wonderment. Dylan was all right, and the bond between her children nothing short of extraordinary. He had needed to get away and saw it as a chance to meet their grandfather properly, Lily had mumbled in the car, with the manifest reluctance of one still despising her own disloyalty. They had each other’s backs, she had added simply, with the new hint of defiance that Esther was starting to recognise. And who wouldn’t want that? Splitting parents bringing children closer, it was a good thing, surely.

The fridge was roomy with a handle as big as an iron. It gave a neat click as Esther tugged it open, revealing an astonishing array of contents: a half side of cooked salmon sprinkled with herbs and lemon slices, a bowl of home-made potato salad, a dish of diced sprouts, a turkey in a tinfoil nest, heavily draped with bacon, and a crystal glass bowl full to the brim with stiff-peaked, glistening brandy butter. Esther was still taking it all in, when a burst of footsteps into the hall was followed by Lucas bellowing that it was time to go. In one swift movement, she pushed the fridge door too, whisked the kettle off its ring just before it whistled, and rushed along the passageway. Arriving in time to see Lucas’s legs disappearing onto the landing, she gingerly put her head round the open sitting-room door. John was motionless, parked in a hearthside leather chair facing away from her, a tartan blanket draped over his legs, flames licking and snapping round what looked like a fat new log in the grate beside him.

He turned his head slowly, as if sensing rather than seeing her. ‘You look well, Esther.’

‘John, I just want to say that what you have done… going behind our backs… it is unspeakable.’

He shrugged, plucking at his blanket with his big knotty fingers. ‘He asked to come, Esther. He knew that you and Lucas would have forbidden it. All I did was say yes.’ He put a hand to his mouth as a phlegmy cough erupted, swallowing it down so noisily she had to look away in disgust. ‘Lucas certainly did not mince his words.’ He started a grim, throaty chuckle that became another cough. ‘Safe journey, anyway,’ he growled, once this too had been swallowed. ‘I won’t see you off out in the cold, if you don’t mind.’