‘I was there when Griff was born,’ Eleanor said in a tragic voice, placing her hand at her bosom. ‘You were with him when he died. There is a fearsome symmetry about this. I would very much like to meet you. Maybe I am being too hard on you? Perhaps I am doing you a grave injustice? You don’t seem real on TV or in photographs. Too perfect for one, not a hair out of place, always immaculately groomed, always glowing.’ Eleanor touched her own face and hair with an ironic gesture. ‘I would like to see with my own eyes what you are really like.’

The waiter had silently beckoned to one of his colleagues and the two young men stood further down the aisle and watched Eleanor’s performance furtively but with the liveliest interest.

‘I never used to consider myself a “maternal woman”, despised the type rather,’ Eleanor went on, ‘but all I can think of now is my dead son. I don’t expect you to know what goes on in a mother’s heart because you have never had any children, but perhaps you could try? I hope you write back. For Griff’s sake. Your songs clearly meant a lot to him. It is a complete mystery to me why that should have been so, but then I am not exactly one of your aficionados… You may at least have the decency to apologize, you fucking crazy bitch. I don’t know exactly why I wrote that last sentence, but it seems right somehow, so I will leave it -’

Eleanor Merchant’s throat felt dry and a bit sore, so she took a sip of tea. The tea was cold now, tasteless and quite revolting. She glanced down at the second letter through the spread fingers of her right hand, then she covered the letter with both her hands. She had written the second letter a month after the first and again she had sent it by airmail as well as registered, c/o Fabiola, Corinne Coreille’s record company in Paris. Corinne Coreille had not deigned to reply to either letter, though Eleanor was absolutely certain that she had received them.