Claire had been temping at the same accountancy firm since she’d finished her degree. It wasn’t temping any more, it was a proper secretarial job, just without any of the benefits. She typed up letters, she answered the phone, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life. It couldn’t be. So Joan sent her adverts for graduate jobs from time to time: where was the harm in that?

‘I hardly ever send them,’ she said.

‘I don’t want you to send them at all. I’ve told you that. I said it three years ago. Why’s it so hard?’

‘So just ignore them. Delete them as soon as they arrive.’

‘I don’t want to have to see them!’

‘Well.’ Joan sat back in her chair. ‘You’ve got a lot to say for yourself today. It’s not so long ago you wouldn’t say anything at all. Does he know about that?’

‘He knows everything. He knows me better than you.’

‘It was half a year, Claire. Half a year when you lived in this house and you wouldn’t say a word. That was very difficult for us.’

‘But she’s over it now, aren’t you?’ Henry said.

‘No, Dad, that’s what I’m saying. I’m unhappy. I’m depressed.’

Joan resented instantly the formal foreclosure of the word, its clinical power. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘I know things haven’t been easy for you recently.’

‘It’s not just recently. It’s been years.’

‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that,’ Joan said again. ‘But depression’s a chemical thing, you know, it’s a chemical imbalance. That’s why antidepressants are so effective.’

‘Depression,’ Claire said, her voice wavering, ‘is withheld knowledge.’

‘Oh Claire. You don’t even sound like yourself. Where did you get that from?’

‘It’s John Layard,’ Mark said.

‘What’s that?’

‘A Jungian analyst; a very good one, actually.’

‘I’m telling you,’ Claire said. ‘My depression comes from feeling things and knowing things that I’m not allowed to express.’

‘Like what?’ Joan asked. ‘Not allowed by who? By me?’ Claire didn’t answer. ‘Don’t be silly,’ Joan said. ‘You can tell me’ – she stopped short of saying anything – ‘whatever you want.’

‘I can tell you what you want to hear.’

‘That’s not true. You’ve just told me you’re depressed. That’s not something I wanted to hear.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Of course it’s not!’