‘Not Guy, Freddy. She’s finished with Guy, or he finished with her, one of the two. I can’t keep up.’

Olivia sighed wryly. ‘I’ll call her and commiserate.’

‘Not too much or you’ll make her worse,’ Norah said at once. ‘She’s a silly woman. I’ve always said so. Mind you, it’s not all her fault. Her own mother has a lot to answer for. Fancy giving her a stupid name like Melisande! She was bound to see herself as a romantic heroine.’

‘You mean,’ Olivia said, ‘that if Mum had been called something dull and sensible she wouldn’t have eloped?’

‘Probably not, although I think she’d have been self-centred whatever she was called. She’s never thought of anyone but herself. She’s certainly never thought of you, any more than your father has. Heaven alone knows what he’s doing now, although I did hear a rumour that he’s got some girl pregnant.’

‘Again?’

‘Yes, and he’s going about preening as though he’s the first man who’s ever managed it. Forget him. The great fool isn’t worth bothering with.’

Thus she dismissed her nephew-with some justice, as Olivia had to admit.

They chatted for a while longer before bidding each other an affectionate goodnight. Olivia delayed just long enough to make herself a basic meal, then fell thankfully into bed, ready to fall asleep at once.

Instead she lay awake, too restless for sleep. Mysteriously, Dr Mitchell had found his way into her thoughts, and she remembered him saying, Other people have to pick up the pieces, and often it is they who get hurt.

He’d given her a look full of wry kindness, as if guessing that she was often the person who had to come to the rescue-which was shrewd of him, she realised, because he’d been right.

As far back as she could remember she’d been the rock of stability in her family. Her parents’ marriage had been a disaster. They’d married young in a fever of romance, had quickly been disillusioned by prosaic reality and had headed for divorce. Since then her mother had remarried and divorced again before settling for lovers. Her father had moved straight onto the lovers.