‘Humans can do many things we can’t. You are right to think there are many ways to measure performance. Please, Margaret, explain why Cecilia wanted to die.’

‘Her grief had no end. She could accept the death of her husband, as I have – at least, up to a point. It still hurts, but it’s a reasonable pain. Her agony at the death of her daughter was not, and never could be reasonable.’

‘Because it was untimely? Many children die young, in poorer countries, and here too, in the past. Not many now, but it must always be considered a possibility.’

‘You’re applying logic, and you yourself said a moment ago logic is useless as a way to predict human behaviour. I don’t know, my dear, if I can explain to you more than I’ve done already. We love our children without reservation, and with our whole hearts, and we never love anyone else that way, no matter what we say to our most beloved husbands and wives. When I said we never, ever get over the death of a child, I meant we go on loving them, in the same way, forever. And because they’re gone, and we can’t look at them, or hold them, or kiss them, we are utterly and completely bereft. Worse still – we can’t do what we always want to do – make them feel better. We can’t kiss them better, because they’ve gone. Gone.’

Her emotions were surging once again.

‘Margaret, I know you are upset. How do you know all this? All your children are alive.’

She looked at me for several moments before replying.

‘You’re right. But I have a heart. And an imagination. And every parent has imagined losing a child. Every parent has had a heart-stopping moment when they’ve lost sight of one of their children, and for a second thought they were lost, or taken. And it happened to Cecilia, right in front of her. And no, I suppose I can’t imagine – I don’t want to imagine how terrible it was for her. I can feel a small part of it, and it’s more than enough. I should say life went on far too long for her after that. She did her best, but really, one hundred and four years – seventy-four after her daughter died – is a very long sentence.’

Her emotions began to calm, and we sat in silence for a while.

‘One further question, if you don’t mind,’ I said at last.

‘Of course.’

‘If another resident asks to die, should we agree to it?’

She looked horrified at this.

‘Certainly not! For one thing, people change their minds all the time. Some days things may look pretty bleak, then the next, they’re all right. Or at least, better.’

‘Yes, we know human moods are variable. How should we decide then?’