‘No.’ She lowered her eyes, buttoned and unbuttoned the neck of her pinafore. ‘No. I don’t hate. Not now. After forty years. Not hate. Not hate. She’s a child. But I don’t see any harm in reminding her what they did. They forget.’

‘But she had nothing to remember! She wasn’t even born! She knows exactly what they did … all. She is bitterly, bitterly aware of what was done. They are a new generation, Bruna, they asked questions and were appalled by the answers. She can’t be held responsible for the errors of her parents: she had to have the chance to carry her life without guilt. Don’t you see?’

Bruna tucked the basket under her arm. ‘She carries the seed. They all do. They won’t change.’

‘They won’t change if we don’t help them to.’

‘They should bear the guilt. Why not? We bear the grief of the deaths they caused, don’t we? Has she ever noticed how many women are still in mourning in this country? Forty and even sixty years later.’

‘But she’s a child. She’s twenty. The same age as you were then, exactly, with the same hopes, the same dreams, the same despairs. There is no point, or justice, in reminding her of something which she didn’t do. And for which, anyway, she wasn’t responsible. I mean, you must see that, dearest Bruna?’

‘I suppose …’ She shrugged, rubbed the side of her face.

‘I know you don’t hate, you couldn’t. Be an angel, will you, and tell her this? Before she goes tomorrow?’

Bruna looked at Cuckoo in disbelief. ‘To apologize? Is that it?’

‘It would be kind. She’s sure you hate her. Could you just say that it was unintentional? Before they leave. For my sake?’

Bruna looked at a thin hand plucking vaguely at a ribbon, the menu which had scattered to the floor, the thin net of perspiration running along the fading hairline.

‘May I sit?’ she said.

‘Bruna dear! Of course, sit, sit. You look so severe standing there; like a hat stand.’

Bruna sat slowly, upright, hands folded together, basket leaning against the chair at her side. ‘The boy pulled you out. Didn’t he?’

Cuckoo turned away quickly, hands to her face, looked through the open windows to the sea; flinched, turned her head and stared up into the branches of the parasol pine. From light years ago, Archie’s voice: ‘A damned fine totem pole at the edge of the lawn.’ Scrumptious! My scrumptious. How idiotic. To go shrimping. Without the net.

‘Are you bargaining?’ she said quietly.

Bruna’s hands closed into fists. ‘Yes. If you like.’

‘I don’t.’

‘But he did?’

‘Yes. He did.’

‘It was not a slip, a little fall?’

‘No. Not. Deliberate. I tried.’

Bruna gave a cry of smothered pain, her hands to her mouth. ‘Ma belle! Oh, ma belle!’

‘You asked,’ said Cuckoo wearily.

‘But why? Tell me why, I who love you so.’

‘I’m unwell.’

‘How? You know?’