‘He shouldn’t be in that terrible place.’

We watched Marlon and Maple gently padding back towards us, Uncle Jack murmuring his words of encouragement and advice.

‘Your father was trying to protect you.’

‘I know.’

‘That’s why he went to that hotel. That’s why he had to have it out with that bloody awful man.’

I hesitated. ‘But Dad didn’t kill him, Mum.’

She stared at me with disbelief. ‘Then who did?’

Marlon laughed, a wild joy in his laughter, and we looked up to see the old man and the boy and the horse.

‘I’ve got you,’ said Uncle Jack, his face close to Maple’s, and it felt like they were words that had been there all my life, soothing me, assuring me that I was not going to fall, that I was not alone, that everything was going to be all right in the end.

‘I’ve got you,’ Uncle Jack said. ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’

I stood at the big French windows and stared out over the empty field. In the far distance, Uncle Jack was leading Maple into her stable. My mother was putting on one of her records. Dolly Parton began pleading with Jolene not to take her man.

My mother loved country and western music, all of it, from Patsy Kline and Dolly Parton all the way through to Emmylou Harris and even early Taylor Swift. All that big blonde hair and steel guitars, motel rooms and smoky bars, wronged women and wayward men – Story of her life, I could not stop myself thinking – but it was only now, with my father away, that my mother felt free to play her music.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’ I said, and she looked at me as if it was the last question she was expecting.

‘The thing about this illness business is that you are not ready for the sadness,’ my mother said. ‘You know that illness is going to be full of pain and anxiety and distress. But the sadness of it all, that’s what catches you off guard. I think about everything your dad’s going to miss. He wanted to watch Marlon grow up. He wanted to see you settled.’

I rubbed her arm and I could not remember the last time I had touched her and I thought – am I still not settled?

‘Mama?’

Marlon was in the doorway in his pyjamas. There was a line on his forehead from his pink riding hat. He held out his arms.

‘Basically I’m not tired.’

‘Basically you are tired,’ I said, going to him, scooping him up in my arms. ‘But you’re also excited after doing all that great riding. Your head’s a washing machine with all those thoughts going around and round.’

‘Want Grandma to put you to bed?’ my mum said.

‘Both of you,’ he ordered.

My mother led us upstairs to the master bedroom. It still seemed strange, entering this Chanel-scented inner sanctum. My parents’ bedroom had seemed like some secret palace when I was a child. It still did, I realised. My mum’s bottles of scents and creams and lotions and potions on the dresser, the colour and season coordinated walk-in wardrobe, that smell of a sophisticated pampered wife, mother and woman. There was little trace of my father in here.