Katie, sitting against Sam’s chair at his feet, looked up at Gerry who’d come back in with a coffee for her wrecked husband. He tried to pass Sam the steaming mug, and when it was ignored, placed it on the stone hearth and sat down on the sofa next to Ann. They felt useless. They could be good in a crisis, Gerry and Ann. When Katie had gone into labour with Jess, they had been round here, soothing the panicking Sam, looking after Billy and sorting things out. That was what they were good at. But how could they help when they didn’t know what the crisis was? Sam wouldn’t talk to them. Billy wouldn’t talk to them. Katie couldn’t talk to them without crying. The Hunt household had gone from the big happy place of laughs and perpetual hospitality, to a vale of tears. And nobody seemed to know why.

Katie stroked Sam’s free hand that was hanging limply over the arm of his chair and he withdrew it. She looked like he’d slapped her.

Gerry noted the expression on Katie’s face and cleared his throat. ‘Look. Wouldn’t it be best if we could all just talk?’

Sam raised his eyes slowly to Gerry, as if realizing for the first time that he was there. ‘About what?’

Gerry held Sam’s gaze. ‘About what’s up with you mostly.’

In Sam’s dark eyes, something like fire kindled. ‘Nothing’s up with me. What’s up with you?’

‘Meaning?’

‘Got no life? Get off on spending a silent evening in a room, staring at two people who want you to go?’

Katie’s fingers closed on her sleeve. ‘Sam!’

‘Sure. We got better things to do.’ He paused and then looked away from Sam. ‘You want us to go Katie?’

Her eyes were wide. ‘Of course not. Have your coffee.’

Sam was still staring at Gerry as though the man on his couch were brandishing a knife, instead of holding a brown mug with some poorly painted ears of wheat on the side. ‘This is my house. I want you to go.’

There was silence, and when Gerry spoke again he experienced a sensation that he had only encountered once in his adult life. Plenty in childhood, but never as an adult. It was that horror of ugly words formed secretly in the safety of your head reaching your mouth before you had time to catch them and replace them with something more acceptable. The words were there and he was standing somewhere inside his own body watching them being spoken as though he were not the speaker.

‘Actually, it’s Katie’s house.’

The air in the room almost shifted with his words. Katie replied softly. ‘Now I want you to go.’