The same annoyance that had disfigured Callum’s face earlier on now disfigured, momentarily, her mother’s. The purple pouches under her eyes seemed to darken, as if the fluid inside them were changing colour in response to her mood. Claire remembered this, too: the torn, the wind-driven sky of her mother’s countenance, which set them all, the children, their father as well, furiously winding back whatever it was they’d just said, gathering it in, absorbing it again. Claire’s father apparently had not accompanied her mother on this visit. Claire took that as a gesture of solidarity; she imagined him sitting on the bench in the garden, his eyes closed to the sun, saying, ‘Just leave the girl alone.’

Her mother turned to look at Callum, giving him permission to answer.

‘It’s a damson tree,’ he dutifully said.

Once the felt’s been matted together, it has to be scoured and stretched. You scour with urine, or fuller’s earth, or a solution of more soap, submerging the felt and trampling it to release the oils and dirt that have accumulated in the process. It feels counter-intuitive, to dirty something in order to make it clean, but you have to. You have to keep faith with the work.

Callum was fidgeting openly in the doorway. His hands fanned out from his thighs, the fingers spreading and curling in arrhythmic agitation. He was meant to be somewhere else, but couldn’t bring himself to announce it. Exits had always been difficult for him. He’d stand like a beaten carthorse for hours, radiating misery, rather than take the blame for ending an encounter. Sometimes Claire had caught him looking on with baffled envy when Dean simply rose from his chair, mid-conversation, and left the room.

It was the hospital, of course: Callum was meant to have left by now, but he’d waited for their mother to arrive and assume responsibility for the situation. For Claire. It was a chain of custody. The overly solicitous breakfast had been designed to keep her put.

‘You’re going to be late,’ Claire said to Callum, over her mother’s head. Rubbing it in. Then, to her mother, she said, ‘Tell him he can go.’

Callum frowned again, his mouth opening slightly, as if he were going to speak.

‘He doesn’t need my permission,’ her mother said. ‘This is his house.’

‘Is it? Then why’s it full of your things?’

‘He bought this house with his own money. He wouldn’t take a penny from us, not even for the deposit, would you?’

‘He didn’t need to. He lived at home that whole time for free.’

Callum seemed finally to accept that his honour was being impugned. ‘Look, I don’t think,’ he began, frowning; but his mother was speaking again.

‘Actually not for free. He paid rent. You insisted on paying rent, didn’t you?’