Kitabı oku: «The Crightons», sayfa 3

‘What are you planning to do?’ Jenny asked Maddy in some amusement. ‘Train all our teenage mums as potential herbalists?’

Maddy laughed. ‘No, of course not. No, what I was thinking was that we could perhaps utilise the kitchen garden here and combine a programme on gardening with nutritional awareness and simple, basic home remedies of the type our grandmothers would have used. It would be another step towards making our mums independent and add to their sense of self-worth.’

‘Well, it’s certainly worth thinking about,’ Jenny agreed.

After her late marriage to the man she had loved and believed lost to her, the father of her illegitimate daughter, Ruth had handed over day-to-day control of the charity she had founded to Jenny and Maddy, thus allowing her to split her time between her home in Haslewich and her family in America.

‘Mmm … and you know that land that was used for allotments—the land the council owns down by the river—it’s all overgrown and untidy now. Well, I was thinking, if we could persuade them to allow us to use it, the boys could perhaps be encouraged to clear it. It could be a community project.’

As she listened to the enthusiasm in her daughter-in-law’s voice, Jenny reflected that Ruth couldn’t have chosen anyone better to be her successor. Maddy had transformed herself from the shy, downtrodden bride Max had married into a woman of such enormous capability and compassion, of such energy and love, that Jenny felt blessed to have her as a member of the family.

‘Joss is most concerned about Ben,’ she confessed quietly to her daughter-in-law. ‘He asked Jon if he thought David would ever come home.’

Maddy gave the older woman an understanding look. ‘Gramps has become increasingly withdrawn and morose, as you know, but when he does speak, increasingly the sole topic of his conversation is David, and just recently he’s no longer talking about if David comes back but when he comes back.’

‘Oh dear,’ Jenny sighed. ‘Do you think …?’

Maddy shook her head. ‘Oh, no, he’s perfectly sensible. No sign of any dementia, according to Dr Forbes. No. I think that Ben is just so desperate to have David home, so determined that he will come home, that he’s convinced himself that it is going to happen. Do you think he will come back?’ Maddy asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Jenny replied thoughtfully. ‘He wasn’t … isn’t … like Jon. He …’

‘He’s like Max was before,’ Maddy agreed. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Well, yes, but David never really had that … that hard-edged aggression of Max’s,’ Jenny told her. ‘He was selfish, yes, breathtakingly so, but weak. He must have known for years about Tiggy’s eating disorder,’ Jenny used the nickname for Tania the whole family knew her by, ‘but he never once attempted to do anything about it so far as we can tell. He never made any attempt to defend Olivia from Ben’s unkindness when she was growing up or to encourage her in her ambition to become a solicitor. And as for poor little Jack …’

‘Olivia has always said that he wasn’t a good father.’

‘No, he wasn’t,’ Jenny concurred soberly and then felt obliged to add in her brother-in-law’s defence much as she knew Jon would have done, ‘But against that you have to set his upbringing and the appalling indulgence with which Ben treated him. He put David on a pedestal so high that it not only gave him a warped idea of his own importance, but it must have been frightening for him at times.’

‘Frightening?’ Maddy queried.

‘Mmm … He must have worried about falling off it,’ Jenny told her simply. ‘And Ben never stopped insisting to Jon that he must virtually devote his life to his first-born twin brother. He also paradoxically and probably without thinking deliberately did everything he could to drive a wedge between them. Their loyalty to one another was never left to develop naturally. Jon was practically ordered to put David first.

‘It all stemmed, of course, from the fact that Ben lost his own twin brother at birth. His mother, who I am sure never realised what she was doing and was perhaps following the way of the times, seems to have brought Ben up in the belief that his dead brother would have been a saint and that Ben’s life and hers were blighted because he was not there to share it with them.

‘Having a twin is such a special relationship,’ Jenny added soberly. ‘To have another person made in one’s exact physical image and to have shared the intimacy of the womb with him and yet to know oneself to be completely separate from him.’

‘Olivia would hate it if David were to return,’ Maddy said with insight.

‘She does have scant reason to want him back. As we’ve agreed, he wasn’t a good father. Add to that the fact that she had to deal with not just her mother’s bulimia but David’s fraud, as well, at a time when her own relationship with Caspar was going through a bad patch, and I can understand why she feels so negatively towards him.’

‘Yes, so can I.’ Very carefully, Maddy drew an abstract outline on the kitchen table with her fingernail before saying slowly to Jenny, ‘I don’t think Olivia is feeling too happy at the moment.’

As she lifted her head and looked into Jenny’s eyes, the older woman’s heart sank. Olivia was as close and as dear to her as one of her own daughters—more so in some ways—and although Olivia had said nothing to her, Jenny, too, had noticed how strained and unhappy she was looking.

‘Jon has told her that she is working far too hard,’ Jenny responded.

There was a small pause and then Maddy said uncertainly, ‘You don’t think there’s anything wrong between her and Caspar, do you?’

Jenny looked searchingly at her. ‘What makes you ask that?’

‘Nothing. Well, nothing I can explain logically,’ Maddy admitted. ‘It’s just … well, I’ve noticed whenever I go round that there’s a sort of atmosphere.’

‘Olivia has mentioned that she feels that Caspar ought to refuse an invitation they’ve received to attend a wedding in the family,’ Jenny told her carefully. ‘Perhaps …’

‘No, Olivia told me about that. I think it’s more than that. They just don’t … they just don’t seem happy together any more,’ Maddy told her hesitantly. ‘And the children …’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘Olivia isn’t the type to discuss her most personal thoughts and feelings freely, but I know how much you and Jon think of her and would hate—’

‘Olivia has always been a very private person,’ Jenny quickly agreed. ‘Her home life made her very independent from an early age. That was one of the things that helped her to bond so closely with Caspar, I think, the fact that they both experienced difficult childhoods, Caspar with his parents’ constant remarriages and Olivia with David and Tiggy’s problems. We were very close when Olivia was younger, but she seems to have changed since Alex’s birth.’ Jenny gave a small sigh. ‘I suppose it’s only to be expected—she has Caspar now and the children, and Caspar adores Amelia and Alex. He’s a wonderful father.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Maddy agreed, turning away from Jenny as she asked a little awkwardly, ‘I was wondering if that could be part of the problem. Oh, I know that Olivia loves them, too, but—’

‘You think that she might be a little resentful of the fact that because of their different careers, Caspar has taken over the main parenting role?’ Jenny guessed. ‘Olivia loves her children,’ she added protectively.

‘Her children—yes,’ Maddy replied before saying uncomfortably, ‘I probably shouldn’t mention this, but the other week when we were over there for dinner, Olivia really snapped at Caspar over something trifling and it wasn’t just an ordinary husband-and-wife grizzle. She’s told me, too, that she thinks Caspar has become far too protective of the children. Whilst we were there, she said to him, quite vehemently, that Haslewich wasn’t New York.’

‘Max is a very caring father, too,’ Jenny said.

‘Mmm … but not to the extent of correcting me about what size socks the children wear and whether or not they need new underwear,’ Maddy told her simply. ‘To be quite honest, I can imagine that in Olivia’s shoes I might easily feel just a little shut out and I—’

‘You didn’t have Olivia’s upbringing when she learned in the most painful way that as a girl, as herself, she wasn’t properly valued. I understand what you’re saying and I can see the problem, but seeing it and knowing what to do about it are two different things.’

‘Yes, I know. I did offer to have the children for a weekend so the two of them could go away together, but Olivia said that they simply didn’t have the time. “I’m far too busy at work” and “Caspar would never leave the children” were her exact words.’

‘Mmm …’ Jenny was thoughtful.

‘Oh, and speaking of children, I almost forgot. Did Leo say anything to you about seeing a strange man?’

‘No!’ Jenny denied immediately, looking alarmed. ‘Where? What …?’

‘Well, you know what a vivid imagination my son’s got.’ Maddy gave Jenny a rueful look. ‘But he keeps talking about a “nice man” who he wants to be his friend. He says he’s seen him in the garden. “Grampy Man” he calls him, whatever that means! But whenever we’ve gone out to look, we haven’t seen a sign of anyone.’

‘Oh, Maddy, have you told the police? These days …’

‘Not yet. Leo knows, of course, about not talking to strangers or going near them, but the odd thing is that he keeps referring to this man as a nice man, but when I asked him what he meant he couldn’t explain. He’s normally very cautious, too, but—’

‘Where exactly has he seen him?’ Jenny asked worriedly.

‘In the garden. But when I wanted to know what the man was doing, Leo said, “Nothing. He was just standing looking.” Not at him, apparently, but at the house.’

‘I think you really ought to mention it to the police,’ Jenny cautioned.

‘Yes, but if it’s just some poor itinerant looking for an empty shed to spend the night in—’

‘Maddy, you’ve got a heart of gold,’ Jenny told her, shaking her head.

‘Maybe, but I’m still making sure that the children don’t go out of my sight when they’re in the garden,’ Maddy assured her.

As the grandfather clock on the stairs struck the hour, Maddy gave a small groan.

‘Is that the time? I haven’t given Ben his medicine yet this afternoon.’

Jenny laughed not unsympathetically as she told her, ‘Perhaps if your herbalist’s remedies work, you won’t have to any more.’

Maddy laughed with her. ‘Wouldn’t that be something? You wouldn’t believe the lengths he goes to not to have to take his pills and yet, after refusing them, he goes on to complain about the pain he’s in. He says they make him feel sleepy and he’s even accused us of trying to sedate him into senility. He apologises afterwards, of course, but when he’s having a bad day …’ She shook her head.

‘You’re a saint. Do you know that?’ Jenny told her fondly as she got up and gave her a loving hug.

CHAPTER THREE

‘… MADDY WAS SAYING that when she and Max went to dinner with Olivia and Caspar, Olivia was … Jon, you aren’t listening to a word I’m saying,’ Jenny protested.

‘Sorry, Jen. What was that?’ Jon apologised, giving his wife a penitent look.

‘I was just trying to talk to you about how concerned both Maddy and I are about Olivia and Caspar,’ Jenny told him mock sternly and then sighed and asked him more gently, ‘What is it, Jon? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ he denied swiftly, too swiftly in Jenny’s wifely opinion.

‘Yes, there is,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me.’

‘It’s David,’ Jon admitted with reluctance. ‘I just can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t want to. Heaven knows I’ve got a hundred other things I ought to be thinking about—at least—but no matter how hard I try to keep him out, he keeps coming into my mind.’

Because she understood and loved him, instead of allowing him to see her curiosity by demanding further details, she simply smiled and said nonchalantly, ‘Oh, I expect it’s just because we’ve been talking about him recently.’

‘Mmm … that’s what I thought,’ Jon agreed in relief. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked as Jenny suddenly got up out of her armchair and hurried towards the sitting-room door.

‘Oh, I just remembered that I need to give Katie a ring. She was saying the other day that she had no idea what to get her mother-in-law for her birthday and I saw the very thing for her in the shop, the prettiest Dresden inkstand.’

The antiques shop in Haslewich, which had originally been owned and run by Jenny and her partner, Guy Cooke, but which was now owned solely by Guy and run by one of his cousins, Didi, was a favourite stopping-off point for Jenny whenever she went into town. Still, Jon couldn’t help giving a faint, pained male sigh of incomprehension and bewilderment at his wife’s sudden and to him inexplicable need to speak with their daughter right in the middle of a discussion about something else.

‘I thought you wanted to talk to me about Olivia and Caspar,’ Jon complained.

‘Yes. I did … I do,’ Jenny agreed. ‘But you know what I’m like. If I don’t ring Katie now and tell her about the inkstand, I’ll probably forget.’

Jon blinked a little in surprise at this disarming statement since, as he had good cause to know, Jenny never forgot anything. She could, he often privately thought, have masterminded the provisioning and deployment of an army were she called upon to do so, so excellent was her grasp on all the many different threads of her life. Still, who was he as a mere male, a mere husband, to question the intricate thought patterns of a master tactician?

‘Katie?’ Jenny answered her daughter’s hello as she picked up the telephone receiver. ‘Do you ever find that Louise sometimes pops into your thoughts, sometimes when you don’t really expect her to be there?’

‘As though she’s trying to get in touch with me, you mean?’ Katie responded to her mother’s question with immediate insight. ‘It did happen, especially when we were younger and she wanted to borrow money off me.’ She laughed before saying more seriously, ‘Yes, I do get her in my thoughts. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing, not really. Oh, and by the way, I saw the ideal present for Seb’s mother in the shop the other day. It—’

‘—the antique inkstand. I’ve already bought it for her,’ Katie told her mother triumphantly. ‘I was in town myself this afternoon and the moment I saw it I knew she’d love it. I bumped into Maddy, as well. She said something about consulting a herbalist to see if she could do anything to help Gramps.’

‘Mmm … she was telling me all about it earlier,’ Jenny said.

‘It isn’t a herbalist he really needs,’ Katie told her sadly. ‘It’s a magician, someone who can wave a wand and bring Uncle David back for him. Speaking of which, this herbalist of Maddy’s wouldn’t be the woman who’s moved into Foxdean, would it? She was in the health-food shop when I went in the other day. Very attractive. Tall, dark-haired, with the most amazingly piercing blue eyes, and despite her casual clothes she had that unmistakable look of elegance about her—if you know what I mean. After she had gone, Didi told me that she’s related to Lord Astlegh, a second cousin or something.’

‘Well, Guy will know. He’s very close to Lord Astlegh and he goes over to Fitzburgh Place pretty regularly. Foxdean. It’s very brave of her to have moved in there.’

‘Because of the ghost? Oh, come on, Ma, you don’t believe in that, do you?’

‘No, of course not. What I meant was that she was brave to move in there because of the state of the house. Look, I must go. Your father will be waiting for his supper. We’ll be seeing you on Sunday, though, won’t we?’

‘You certainly will. Seb says that nothing would stop him from eating one of your Sunday lunches.’

After replacing the receiver, Jenny went over to the fridge, opened it and removed some of her home-made pâté. Jon loved cheese and pickles with fresh, crusty bread for his supper, but it gave him the most dreadful indigestion. He would complain about being given the pâté instead, of course, but he would still enjoy it.

Was it a sign that they were becoming old that the very predictability of her husband’s reactions was something she found reassuring and comforting as well as amusing rather than boring or irritating? If so, then as far as she was concerned, it was a definite plus point. The heady excitement that accompanied the early stages of being in love might have been denied to her and Jon for a variety of complex reasons that were now past history, but Jenny felt she had been more than compensated for its absence by the deep and richly joyous loving contentment and companionship they now shared. And for her, sex, too, was something that had improved and become infinitely more pleasurable in these past few years.

It now seemed odd to think that she had once envied David and Tania their outwardly so perfect marriage, feeling that everyone who knew them must pity Jon because his plain, dull wife in no way matched up to the exciting glamour attached to being married to an ex-model.

Quietly, she picked up the supper tray and headed for the sitting room, the new fitted carpets they had splashed out on the previous autumn muffling the sound of her footsteps as she pushed open the door.

Jon was standing with his back towards her, studying one of the photographs she kept on the small antique bureau. Silently, Jenny watched him.

The photograph was one that had been taken on the night of David and Jon’s shared fiftieth birthday party. Jenny forgot who had taken it, but it had caught David and Jon in mid-conversation with one another and conveyed a closeness that in reality had not existed, a rapport that for some reason made them look even more physically alike than they actually were.

Although he rarely spoke about it to her now, Jenny knew just how much David’s disloyalty and dishonesty had distressed Jon.

‘If my father knew what Ruth and I were doing by covering up for David, he would be shocked senseless,’ Jon had sadly said to Jenny at the time his brother’s fraud came to light.

Jenny had said nothing. If David had committed a murder, Ben would have expected and even demanded that Jon claim the crime was his to spare David any punishment.

‘If you didn’t let Ruth pay back the money, could you ever forgive yourself?’ Jenny had asked him.

The bleak smile he had given her had supplied the answer. Jon was the most honest and upright man there could be and Jenny knew how torn he was by his own conflicting desires to protect their clients from the results of David’s weakness and to save David from the consequences of his actions.

Nor could she forget, either, that David had suffered a heart attack at that very birthday party, one brought on by the stress he was under. Jon might live a far healthier lifestyle than his twin brother, but it wasn’t unknown for twins to share the same health problems, which was one of the reasons she was so insistent on Jon’s not working too hard at the practice.

But her concern for Jon’s health did not mean that she wanted to see Olivia putting a strain on her own marriage by trying to do too much. Perhaps she ought to suggest to Jon that he consider taking on another full-time qualified solicitor.

The arrival of Aarlston-Becker, the huge multinational drug company, in the area some years ago had brought a dramatic increase in the firm’s workload. Aarlston had their own legal department, of course, part of which was headed by Saul Crighton, another in the family caught up in the field of law.

As the tea tray gave a faint rattle, Jon quickly replaced the photograph and turned round to face her. Giving no indication that she had noticed anything out of the ordinary, Jenny smiled her thanks at him as he pulled out the small table they used for their suppers.

‘You won’t believe it, but Katie actually saw the inkstand and bought it. She sends her love,’ Jenny added chattily, but she could see that Jon still wasn’t really giving her his full attention. Now wasn’t the time to probe and pry. Ben’s distress over David’s absence was obviously affecting Jon, but what if David were to come back? Such an event would give rise to all manner of problems and conflicts and she certainly had no wish to see her beloved Jon pushed into second place again or made to feel that he had to shoulder the burden of protecting his brother.

Would it be very wrong of her if she were to offer up a tiny prayer that things could continue as they were and that the warm contentment of their lives should not be disrupted? Maybe not wrong, she acknowledged, but perhaps a little selfish.

AS DIDI FINISHED cataloguing the weeks’ sales from the antiques shop for its owner, Guy Cooke noticed that his normally chatty cousin seemed rather preoccupied.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked her quietly when they had finished their business discussion and had moved on to talk about family matters and the forthcoming eighteenth birthday of Didi’s son, Todd.

‘I’m a bit concerned about Annalise,’ she admitted worriedly. Annalise was her niece, the eldest child of her brother, whose acrimonious divorce had caused a good deal of discussion within the family four years earlier when it had taken place.

‘Paul’s eldest?’ Guy asked, surprised. ‘But Paul was saying only at Christmas how well she was doing at school.’

‘Yes, but in the past few weeks she’s apparently changed completely, neglecting her school-work, going out and refusing to tell him where she’s been or whom she’s been with. Paul says that she’s either lost in some kind of day-dream or snapping at the boys, so much so that she actually made little Teddy cry the other day when she told him off for forgetting to bring his sports kit home from school. And Paul said he has to speak to her at least half a dozen times on some occasions before he gets any kind of response from her.’

‘Sounds like she could be in love,’ Guy suggested.

‘Yes. That’s what Paul’s afraid of,’ Didi admitted.

Guy gave her a rather wry look. ‘Girls of seventeen do fall in love,’ he pointed out with a small smile, ‘or at least they think they do.’

‘Well, yes, but because of her parents’ divorce and her own rather serious nature, Annalise isn’t perhaps quite as aware as most other girls of her age. In some ways as a little mother to the others, she’s very mature, but in other ways—so far as boys go—she’s quite naïve.

‘Paul has tended to be a bit overprotective of them all since the divorce from their mother was a particularly unpleasant one. There had been … relationships with more than one other man before she eventually left with a lover. As you know, his wife’s a Cooke, too, another member of our large family and you also know how old gossip and exaggerated histories tend to be exhumed at times like this. Paul has been determined that his children, and especially Annalise, should remain free of any taint of “carrying the wild Cooke genes”. I have tried to hint gently to him since Annalise started to grow up that there is such a thing as being too protective where boys, sex and relationships are concerned, but you know how prickly Paul can be at times.’

‘Yes, a difficult situation, whichever way you look at it. Do we know who it is that Annalise has fallen so deeply in love with or—’

‘We do, and it poses a problem. It’s a boy called Pete Hunter. Paul is not disposed to think kindly of him because he’s the lead singer with a local group that’s all the rage at the moment.’

‘You mean Salt?’ Guy asked, naming the group of five young local boys who all the teenagers raved over.

‘Mmm … that’s them.’ She gave Guy a curious look. ‘I’m surprised you know the band’s name. I wouldn’t have thought their kind of music was to your taste, Guy.’

‘It isn’t,’ he agreed, ‘but Mike, my sister Frances’s boy, is a member of the group.’

‘Oh, yes, of course he is. So you’ll know Pete, then?’

‘Sort of. A tall, dark-haired lad with what I personally feel is just a little too much “attitude”,’ Guy returned wryly.

‘That’s the one,’ Didi sighed. ‘I mean in one way I doubt that Paul needs to be too worried. Pete is very self-aware and very sure of himself and what he wants from life. I doubt that normally he’d look very hard in Annalise’s direction. Not that she isn’t attractive, she is, and she’s going to be even more so, but right now she’s still very much a seventeen-year-old and a young seventeen-year-old at that.

‘From what I’ve heard, the girls Pete normally squires around are rather more streetwise and, dare I say it, bimboish, and if Paul hadn’t been silly enough to go storming round to Pete’s parents’ house and demand that Pete stay away from his daughter, I’m sure her crush would have died a natural and early death. Of course, Pete being the type of young man he is, Paul’s interference has had exactly the opposite effect from the one he wanted and now, apparently, Annalise has been seen in several clubs around the area where the band has been playing, very much a member of the band’s entourage.’

‘And does Paul know about this?’

‘I’m not sure, but once he does find out, as he’s bound to do … Annalise is at a very vulnerable age and if Paul starts trying to come the heavy father—’

‘Or if in his anxiety he panics and starts telling her she’s going to end up like her mother …’

‘Exactly,’ Didi agreed. ‘I’ve tried to talk to Paul, but he just doesn’t want to know. He can be so stubborn at times. I suspect whilst Annalise believes herself to be deeply in love with Pete, as only a young, idealistic girl can be, Pete is anything but in love with her. I hate to use such an ugly word, but my feeling is that he’s just using her and that once he’s bored he’s just going to push her to one side.

‘Normally, I’d say that that kind of experience is just a part of growing up. We all go through the pain of teenage heartache, but the disparity between Annalise and Pete makes me very anxious for her. Of course, I’m anxious for Paul, as well, especially since the whole thing is inevitably going to be conducted in public …’

‘Mmm … and of course it couldn’t come at a worse time for Annalise’s education, what with her A levels ahead of her,’ Guy added.

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh dear, the perils of a father of teenage daughters,’ Guy sighed. ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help …’

Since his marriage to Chrissie, who was seen to have tamed this wild Cooke, not quite knowing how or why it happened, Guy discovered that he had been elected to the role of paterfamilias within the Cooke clan and that inevitably, at some stage or another, various members of the family would bring their problems to him.

This was one problem where he suspected that Chrissie’s gentle touch would be much more beneficial than his own.

‘We’ve got a family gathering looming soon, haven’t we?’ he asked Didi. ‘I’ll see if Chrissie will have a tactful word with Paul, if you like.’

‘Would you?’ Didi smiled in relief. ‘I haven’t dared say anything to Paul, but I have heard a whisper that Annalise has been bunking off school to be with Pete. The band practises in an old barn out at—’

‘Laura and Rick’s farm, yes, I know,’ Guy said, nodding. ‘They used to use Frances’s garage, but she gave Mike an ultimatum and told him that there was no way she would continue to allow them to use it unless they agreed to keep the noise level down. Laura stepped into the breach and offered them the use of one of their barns.’

‘Well, as I said, it seems that Annalise has been sneaking off school to spend time with them there.’

‘Leave it with me. I’ll do what I can,’ Guy promised.

DAVID TENSED as he watched Maddy’s car come up the drive towards Queensmead. He had been watching the house ever since his arrival in England some days earlier, sleeping at night in unlocked garden sheds and open hay barns. After several weeks at sea sharing cramped quarters with the rest of the crew, the solitariness of his present existence was a relief. He missed Father Ignatius, of course; the two of them had become very close in the time they had worked together. As well as missing him, though, David was also concerned about him. Despite the priest’s vigour and positive attitude towards life, David had sensed recently that the older man was not quite as stalwart as he had once been.

Had he done the wrong thing in leaving him to come home? Had he made the selfish decision—again?

In the car with Maddy were her three children, the second youngest, Emma, with her solemn eyes and determined expression reminding him so much of his own daughter Olivia’s at the same age. It was odd the things that memory retained without one’s being aware of it. If asked, he would have been forced to admit that he had paid scandalously little attention to either of his children as they grew up. Olivia had spent more time with Jon and Jenny than she had done at home, getting from Jenny the loving mothering she had never received from Tiggy, his frighteningly fragile and vulnerable ex-wife. Given the number of years he had been away, David had assumed Tiggy would have divorced him by now and this had indeed been confirmed when he overheard a comment about her having moved away and established a new life for herself with another man. David was shamed to realise that he felt more relief than grief at this discovery. His ex-wife’s loss was one thing; seeing Emma in the garden with her brothers Leo and Jason and being reminded of Olivia was quite another.

But was it his nephew’s children David had really come to see, familiar to him now by name and expression as he watched them play and call out to one another? They tugged at his heartstrings in a way that reinforced how much he had changed.