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can
chat
instead, can’t we?’
    Charlie jerked her head towards the living room. Jeremy fixed a smile and left the kitchen.
    ‘What’s there to chat about?’
    ‘Oh, I … I don’t know. Everything, I suppose.’ Where to start, that was the problem. ‘How … how do you think he is?’
    ‘Your friend, you mean?’
    ‘No, Mother. Your husband. My father. How’s he coping? Has he talked to you about …’ Still hard to say it. ‘About dying?’
    ‘Of course not …’ Verity flopped on to a wheelback chair at the kitchen table. Hair almost snow-white, eyes a watery grey, she looked defeated. ‘
I
want a sherry, even if you don’t. There’s a bottle in that cupboard.’ She pointed to the right of the cooker. Charlie filled two small tumblers.
    ‘He’s not said a word about … about what’s going to happen?’ Charlie queried, hardly surprised. Not easy for a man to unbutton his feelings after a lifetime of keeping them private. So much she didn’t know about him. In fact, the more she thought, the more she realised there was almost nothing she
did
know.
    Verity was on the verge of tears.
    ‘Let it out, Mum,’ Charlie coaxed, touching her hot cheek. ‘It’s good for you.’
    ‘I can’t,’ Verity wailed, pulling away. ‘If I do I might never stop.’ She bit her lip.
    Charlotte turned towards the living room. She heard a rumble of voices. The men had clicked at last. The key for them had been easy – the freemasonry of cricket . If only
she
could find such a route to her father’s heart, she might yet free him from his nightmares and let him die in peace.
    ‘What happened to him, Mum?’
    Verity didn’t understand.
    ‘In the war. In the Japanese POW camp. He must’ve told you
something
.’
    ‘No. Nothing. Nothing at all,’ she whispered. ‘You see it was understood from the moment we were first introduced that he’d had a dreadful time and couldn’t talk about it. And, well, I knew I wanted to marry him from the moment I set eyes on him, so there was a sort of unspoken agreement that I would never ask about it. He knew that and trusted me because of it.’
    ‘But since?’
    Verity shook her head. ‘It was up to him, wasn’t it? If he’d wanted to tell me about it he would have done,’ she said defensively. ‘In those days there were lots of things people simply
didn’t
talk about. Not like now when you get
counselled
for everything.’
    ‘What if
I
were to ask him about it?’ Charlie pressed.
    ‘No!’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘How can you say
why not
?’ she gasped. ‘You know perfectly well what the reaction was last time.’
    ‘I’m
going
to ask. After lunch I’ll sit with him on the terrace. He
needs
to tell someone before he dies, Mother.’
    ‘I forbid you!’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mother. I’m nearly thirty.’
    ‘I don’t care how old you are you
must not ask him about it!
’
    Charlie trembled. She’d never seen her mother so animated, the pale eyes awash with fear, the lines round her mouth drawn tight.
    ‘You
know
, don’t you, Mum? You know what happened to him?’
    Verity shuttled her head.
    ‘No I do not. But …’ she dithered, wondering whether what she was about to say could be construed as betrayal. ‘I … I do know your father well enough to realise that whatever it was, it’s something he is deeply, deeply ashamed of. To bully him into talking about it
now
would be an act of the utmost unforgivable cruelty.’
    Charlie felt a lump in her throat big enough to choke on. Her eyes filled with tears, not because of the reprimand but because she saw for the first time that her mother’s unswerving loyalty to her father had done nothing to help him, but had simply reinforced the bolts on his prison.
    A shrill beep pierced the stillness of the house.
    ‘Good Lord! What’s that?’ Verity clutched at her chest.
    ‘My pager, Mother,’ Charlie explained. ‘Jeremy’s got it. The office is sending me a message.’
    She scraped the chair legs on the