Nanna puts a bowl in front of Ma. “He’s been out of the city,” she says. “He says he’d like to see you, Freya,” she adds, pointedly.

We all look to see her reaction. Ma says nothing. A single tear runs down her cheek and splashes on the table. She touches the side of the bowl to find it, dips her spoon into the stew and lifts it to her lips.

“This is the most delicious stew I have ever eaten,” she proclaims.

The others are digging in, as if unaware of what is going on between Nanna and our mother. Not that it is uncommon for the pair to disagree, but Nanna is always on at her to go outside, to go back into the world.

Nanna sighs. “You don’t need to keep hiding yourself away like this.”

Ma smiles tightly. “Oh, but I do … You’ll remember that time I went to the market with Marina. All I did was speak to one person, while we were buying some vegetables, and the Black Marks later beat him up.” She raises her spoon from the bowl of stew. “I don’t want that kind of thing happening again. So let’s just enjoy this wonderful meal.”

“Stubborn,” Nanna says to her own bowl. “Don’t know where she gets it from.”

Jorzy gives a dry laugh. “Come on, how about a story while we eat? Marina, it’s your turn.”

“Me?” she says, glancing up. “I’m hopeless at telling stories.”

“You tell good stories,” says Babet.

“Um, all right,” Marina murmurs, frowning in thought. “Once upon a time there was a mighty … um, tree.”

“And then?” Babet persists.

Marina gives a hard laugh. “Oh, I don’t know! Jorzy, you tell the story.”

He puts his spoon in his already empty bowl. “Once upon a time there was a mighty tree. A very old tree that stood at the edge of a clearing in the middle of a forest.This tree was so old it had seen just about everything there is to see, and it kept its own counsel about most of it. One day, two rather odd figures turned up in this clearing. It was a man with a crooked nose, and a great big black bear.”

“Ah,” sighs Babet.

Jorzy continued. “As the tree watched, the man drove a stake into the ground in the middle of the clearing, and he chained the bear to this stake. Then he went away. The tree thought this was rather odd behaviour, but he rustled his leaves and waited to see what would happen.