The gardens were wet and chilly under that low sky, and the house had all its blinds down. I stopped to catch my breath, burdened by the prospect of four solitary hours before Cory woke up. I didn’t want to amble about the lawns, getting my feet soaked. I didn’t want to sit on my own in the echoey kitchen, sipping tea.

The best thing would be to crawl under the covers and watch the shadows lighten on the ceiling while I waited for Cory’s day to begin. After all, why not? There was something sweet about the idea, which fitted all my fantasies of happiness, but at the same time it made me twitch my toes and shoulder my bag impatiently.

The driver saw me before I saw him. I hadn’t even realised I was standing at a bus stop—I’d only paused beside the harbour to shove my swimming towel inside my bag—but he must have thought I was waiting to flag him down. As the bus slowed I had time to read the words via Hospital slide along the screen at the front, and then the doors were hissing open and the driver was leaning forward expectantly.

“Hospital?” I said, as much to myself as to him. Cory hadn’t mentioned his mother lately, and I hadn’t dared ask. It would only make him go quiet.

“Are you getting on or not?” The driver was brisk, and before I knew it the machine was spitting out a return ticket and I was fumbling in my purse for change.

Cory wouldn’t mind my visiting his mother, would he? The answer came back straight away, as the bus pulled in at the front entrance: of course he wouldn’t. Going to see someone in hospital was a nice and normal thing to do. I joined the other arrivals in the large revolving door—the heavily pregnant woman, the old man with the walker, the middle-aged couple with the child—and followed them across the squeaky floor of the foyer.

The bouquets in the foyer shop looked sad—the flowers, such as they were, hidden inside layers of plastic packaging—but I bought one anyway. It didn’t matter; it would give me something to talk about if Diana was awake. I could draw a rueful contrast with the gardens at Byrne Hall and offer to cut some roses for her next time I came. My palms began sweating when I thought about what she might say in return, and my fingers made smeary prints on the cellophane.

“Can I help?”

“Oh . . .”

The receptionist and I stared at one another, teetering on the brink of recognition. The name on her staff badge was Maggie Bailey. I was the first to twig.

“It’s you,” I said. “You’re not swimming this morning, then?”

Her features relaxed into a comprehending smile.