‘No,’ said Michael loudly. ‘I don’t have any children at all.’

The woman said nothing, and nor did he. What was there to say, now they knew he was drunk? They couldn’t really ask him why not, and commiseration would have been presumptuous. A light-hearted ‘Lucky you!’ would have been misplaced, because for all they knew Michael was alluding to the fact that he’d had children once, and they had all been burned alive or murdered, which accounted for his descent into alcoholism.

‘How much does your flat cost?’ he said.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said the man quietly. ‘Too much.’

‘It must be an expensive area, Settle. Is it more than a million?’

‘No, no.’

‘How much?’

‘I’m not sure. The, er…’

‘I thought you were buying it. Have you not agreed a price?’

The man finally looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes. But it’s just not something I want to discuss,’ he said politely. ‘It’s a bit… you know. Personal.’

‘Confidential?’

‘There’s nothing confidential about it, but—’

‘What are the school fees at Eton? Giggleswick, I mean.’

‘They… vary.’

‘Expensive, though.’

‘Not cheap.’

‘Then there’s all the other expenses,’ said Michael carefully, working to disguise the tremor in his voice. He was working hard, anxious to avoid rudeness. All he wanted was polite normality. ‘Uniform, I expect. Cricket bats. Rugby kit. Food and drink, and trips to France. Outings to… where do they go? Museums, I suppose. The zoo.’

He poured more whisky.

‘I expect there’s a lot of expense,’ he said. ‘That’s why I didn’t have children. My wife wanted them, passionately.’

He turned back to the woman.

‘I said I just don’t think it’s practical – from a financial point of view. We could have had them. It wasn’t as if… there were obstacles. She had ovaries, after all.’

He laughed.

‘I had what I needed. But… in the end, you have to make a decision. One girl, one boy. One of each. Or none of each, and I decided – we decided, with the expenses – no children for us. So she… left me, and we decided not to get married after all. We hadn’t been together that long, but we knew it wouldn’t work, so she went her separate way. I’m going up to the Highlands, now. Changing at Preston, possibly – or I might go a bit further. Change somewhere else, and change everything.’

‘A long trip then,’ said the woman.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Michael. ‘Where are you going?’

There was another short, charged silence.

‘You’re off to Settle,’ he said. ‘You told me that. What’s your… what’s your grandson’s name?’

A tiny pause, then, ‘Percy.’

‘Oh, Lord. I suppose…’

He floundered.

‘Does he get teased about it?’

The man said, ‘About what?’ And Michael noticed irritation in his voice.

‘About being called Percy,’ said Michael.

‘Why would anyone tease him about his name?’

‘It’s unusual.’