She heard Callum crunching over the gravel towards her. She didn’t turn around; she wanted first to arrange her face into an expression of withering irony. But the voice that said, ‘Claire?’ was not Callum’s. She spun in fright. Her mother was there: an apparition in a pale linen blouse and blue slacks and Clarks sandals. Claire could not understand how white her mother’s eyebrows had become; she could not at first respond, but looked past her mother’s expression of practised consternation to where Callum hung back in the doorway, arms folded, frowning the way she’d imagined he would frown when he saw the disastrous flaws in his karyograms: with faint distaste, and total resignation.

‘Don’t be cross with him,’ her mother said. ‘He was worried about you.’

‘About me?’

‘He said you showed up very late last night. You’d been drinking. He didn’t know what was wrong.’ She was looking at Claire with her steady, watery eyes, in the way that Claire remembered and could not stand: as if she was going to hypnotise her and then get her to perform all kinds of humiliating tricks. ‘He said you were looking very thin.’

It was hilarious – but also, suddenly, typical, so typical that she should have seen it coming – that Callum would have decided to worry about her. Of course. Only distress could make you move away from Leeds and not come home every single weekend. Only distress could make you do something spontaneous, like having a drink and getting on a train you hadn’t booked three months in advance, when the fares were cheapest.

Her mother was holding Claire’s shoes. ‘Come inside,’ she said, and only then did she break eye contact to survey the neighbouring gardens. ‘Come and have some breakfast. You didn’t eat your toast.’

So he’d told her that as well. When, exactly, had he orchestrated this ambush? First thing, of course. A clandestine phone call before Claire was even awake. All he would’ve needed to say was, ‘Um … Claire’s here,’ mild puzzlement badly covered over with polite gladness, and her mother would’ve been away. What do you mean, she’s there? There in your house? Has something happened?

He mother was still watching her, awaiting a response. Claire reached up and touched a branch and called to Callum, ‘What sort of tree is this?’