She was amazed. Claire had always maintained that she could not remember going to see this show at the church hall, though Joan had taken her twice, she loved it so much. This had been before Tessa, when Richard was tiny and Neal was away at school. She’d taken Richard in his pushchair, and miraculously he’d slept through the whole thing, both times, while Claire had crept forward through the chairs and sat on the dusty floor at the front with other children, with strangers. She hadn’t been frightened of the puppets at all, though they were enormous, with marrow-sized heads that broke in half when they talked, that were operated by the men and women dressed all in black, with black balaclavas. When they got home, Claire had tried to make a puppet of her own, with pink felt and polystyrene and a dowel rod; she’d called it ‘Suzanne’, and worn her black cagoule with the hood up and carried it around the house. Suzanne had talked in a strangled voice, high in the back of Claire’s throat; it passed comment on what everyone was doing, though its mouth wouldn’t open and close. God, that puppet! Joan had hated it, hated the weird insistence with which Claire reached for it every morning, how she greeted the postman with it – and when she’d brought it into the breakfast room, where the B&B guests were eating, and made it go from table to table interviewing them about their plans for the day, Joan had marched Claire out of there, Suzanne protesting in its strangled voice, while the guests laughed nervously into their coffee and thought that perhaps they would not stay at Joan’s on their next excursion.

She’d taken Suzanne away, in fact. She’d put it in a black bin bag in the cupboard in her and Henry’s room, and told Claire that she couldn’t have it back for a month – and when the month had passed, Claire hadn’t mentioned it, and neither had Joan.

At last Claire emerged, smudged and tired, and accepted some tea, though not a jam tart. Mark wanted pints of water. They sat at the kitchen table, and after a long silence, Claire said, ‘I’m not happy,’ as if she had expected to be.

‘No,’ Henry murmured.

‘I feel like I’ve felt this way for a long time.’

Joan said, ‘This is the first I’m hearing about it.’

‘It’s not. I’ve tried to tell you.’

‘When have you tried?’

‘Lots of times.’

‘But when?’

‘Claire,’ Henry said, ‘you can always talk to us. You know that.’

‘I think what Claire’s saying’ – this was Mark – ‘is that she talks, but she isn’t sure you listen.’

‘Of course we listen,’ Joan said. ‘When have we not listened?’

‘I’ve asked you not to keep forwarding me job adverts,’ Claire said.