‘Ms Wharton,’ John interrupted abruptly. Everyone would have heard rumours. In this town, where I’d once been greeted (‘Hello, Ms Wharton!’) cheerfully on the street, I was a pariah. It stung. ‘You can’t leave your car there. There’s parking around the back.’

‘There’s space here.’

‘You’re in the way. Other people need to get through.’

Through a row of windows to his right, I spotted the light of the ballroom. Judging by the number of cars, it would be getting crowded.

‘You need to move your car,’ John said.

It wasn’t worth arguing. I restarted my engine. In my rear-vision, I watched John open the entrance door. An elderly couple stepped through. Behind them, the hotel reception was rich with panelled wood and empty vases.

I drove down the driveway as ordered and returned on foot. John waited beneath the white archway. ‘I found the car park.’ I waited for him to open the hotel door for me.

He remained still. ‘We have a dress code. No denim.’

Oh God. ‘I’m here for my meeting. I need to get through.’

‘They’re jeans.’ John’s tone was carefully neutral.

‘They’re designer,’ I tried. In a way this was true. The fabric was an exclusive Brunton Primary Grade 3 design of paint fingerprints that the kids had been very proud of contributing to, and that I’d worn in the hope it would remind families of better days.

He said nothing.

‘A dress code? For a meeting?’ I persisted.

‘The hotel has rules.’

‘I called this meeting.’

‘Other people are looking after it now,’ he said.

I reached into my tan cross-body bag for my wallet and Visa card. ‘This door is also the entrance to the hotel?’ I asked.

John nodded.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll take a room.’

Obviously, there was no dress code for that. In reception, I handed over my card. Then I was allowed through to my own meeting.

The ballroom had been set up with rows of wedding seating. As I walked through the room, I tried again to slip into my usual role, the welcoming smile I shared at school committee meetings. But people I’d known for years avoided eye contact, engaged in discussions that ought to have been obscene. The business of funeral directing had experienced a boom. Three men huddled, debating whether the children, once their bodies were released, should be buried together or with their families, as if playing together was something they would do again. Then there were all the forms of magical thinking people could have:

‘We thought fire wouldn’t bother us. We’re city people,’ Tony Hart said. His wife Kylie crisscrossed the room with business cards, offering therapy sessions in the church hall at a ten per cent discount.

‘This area looks calm, controlled, civilised.’

‘We haven’t been here long enough to be in danger.’

‘We’ve been here fifteen years,’ Vanessa Thornton said, resentfully.