Hugh was the most mild-mannered man Helen had ever meet. Beloved history teacher by day and ancestry investigator by night, everyone who knew Hugh described him as nice and lovely. And that was true.

What they didn’t see was that he was also inconsiderate, lazy and occasionally extremely patronising. There, how’s that for honesty?

He could’ve asked one of the children sitting closer to him to pass the bloody gravy. Or could’ve got up himself.

Helen stood up and walked around to his end of the table to pass him the porcelain gravy jug, barely resisting the childish urge to snatch it back as he reached for it.

She returned to her seat and pulled in the heavy chair. The chair legs scraped, loud in the leaden room.

“Helen, what did you used to be like?”

At fourteen years old, Lydia was petite with blonde hair that would likely darken into mousey brown and blue eyes that always seemed to be cast down to the floor. She was Hugh’s daughter from his previous marriage to Francesca, a rotund HR executive who discovered more than just her love of almond milk when she signed up with personal trainer Todd. She left Hugh and ran away to Brighton with Todd to run a vegan café. Rumour had it she’d never looked or felt so good in her life, but the kids usually came home from their visits to Brighton begging for bacon sandwiches.

Helen paused, her fork hovering in front of her lips, chicken drooping from the end.

“When?” she replied.

“When you were our age?” Lydia said.

White envelopes and Polaroid snaps of moments in time flashed into her head once more. The heavy wooden panels took a step closer into the room.

Matt snorted in between shovelling food like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Only a teenage boy could eat with such gluttony, as though his very survival depended on him getting through his meal as quickly as possible. “She can’t remember that far back,” he sneered without humour.

Matt was Lydia’s brother. Nineteen, boy-band handsome, with dark hair that reached down to the chip on his shoulder. He had inherited Francesca’s Italian genes. Lydia was more like her father – pale, uninteresting.

Helen glared at the top of Matt’s head. Sometimes her stepson could be a right prick.

Actually, most of the time. Who was she kidding?

Helen put down her fork and looked across at Lydia as she waited patiently for an answer. “What do you think I was like?”