He reached up and touched her face, the smell of her as intoxicating as ever. ‘I think I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind. I have some correspondence to catch up on, and then I’ll shower. Really looking forward to supper.’ He smiled warmly at the woman he loved.

‘Me too!’ She kissed him again and turned to her sons, who sat side by side on the wide double bed, glued to a cartoon, the noise from which was infernal.

‘Daddy!’ Noah called, as Lydia grabbed their padded coats from where they rested on top of the overnight bag.

‘No, Daddy is hiding up here and will probably nap for twenty minutes and then make out he hasn’t so he doesn’t feel too guilty that I am in a permanent state of knackeredness and he is unfairly refreshed.’

Digby laughed. ‘Am I that transparent?’

‘Always.’ She beamed. ‘But I wouldn’t have you any other way. I like your transparency. I like knowing everything about you.’ He felt the cold bolt of deceit fire through his core, knowing this was not quite true; she didn’t know about Merrin Mercy Kellow, the girl he almost married. She blew him a kiss and trundled out of the room with the boys rushing ahead.

He opened up his leather folder and placed it open on the desktop before taking the fountain pen from its natty little holder against the central spine of the file and twisting off the lid. Next he turned the pad to an angle and stared at the blank white sheet of paper. It was hard to start, but strangely, once he did, his hand danced across the page with speed and a rare fluidity of communication.

Dear Mother,

I can’t remember the last time I wrote to you – from school, possibly, when we had to pen the obligatory monthly note home to reassure you that we were being well fed and that your fees were being wisely spent. Matron used to check every letter before it was sealed and so even if we had been living off gruel, among cold punishments and misery, it would have been hard to tell you. We weren’t, by the way; I was very happy at school. I liked almost every aspect of it.

I guess it feels easier to write to you rather than try and have this long-overdue conversation face to face, and so here we are. What was it Dad always said? A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer? And so here goes.