Next to him stood another picture, of a young girl. Once she had been the eighteen-year-old Minnie, her face soft, slightly unfinished, still full of hope. She hadn’t known grief and despair. That came later.

Her face was finer now, elegant, more withdrawn, but still open to humour. Her fair hair, worn long in the first picture, now just brushed her shoulders, a length chosen for efficient management.

She changed the position of the flowers twice before she was satisfied.

‘He will like that,’ Netta said. ‘Always he loves flowers. Remember how often he brought them to you? Flowers for your wedding, flowers for your birthday, your anniversary-’

‘Yes, he never forgot.’

Neither woman thought it strange to speak of him both in the present and the past, changing from sentence to sentence. It came so naturally that they barely noticed.

‘How’s Poppa?’ Minnie asked.

‘Always he complains.’

‘No change there, then.’ They laughed together.

‘And Charlie?’

Netta groaned at the mention of her younger son. ‘He’s a bad boy. He thinks he’s a big man because he stays out late and drinks too much and sees too many girls.’

‘So he’s a normal eighteen-year-old,’ Minnie said gently.

In fact she, too, had been growing a little uneasy at her young brother-in-law’s exuberant habits, but she played it down for Netta’s sake.

‘It was better when he was in love with you,’ Netta mourned.

‘Mamma, he wasn’t in love with me. He’s eighteen, I’m thirty-two. He had a boyish crush, which I defused. At least, I hope I did. Charlie’s of no interest to me.’

‘No man interests you. It’s not natural. You’re a beautiful woman.’

‘I’m a widow.’

‘For too long. Now it’s time.’

‘This is my mother-in-law talking?’ Minnie asked of nobody in particular.

‘This is a woman talking to a woman. Four years you are a widow, yet no man. Scandoloso!’