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‘Sorry, my dear . . .?’

‘What we discussed,’ she said again, slightly sharper, as though he were dim and she had to find a way to cut through the fog of his mind. ‘Mr Coglin?’ she urged, sounding outwardly vexed now.

‘Coglin, as in the coffin-maker, Coglin?’ Fleur piped up, annoyed that her stepmother was having any conversation about anything to do with the family business.

‘Oh,’ Henry said, in dawning. ‘Yes.’ He looked sheepish, glancing Fleur’s way.

‘Bert Coglin is unreliable and that’s a nice way of putting it,’ Fleur said, wondering what they were up to. ‘I’m glad we don’t use him as our permanent coffin maker. Why are we having anything to do with him?’ She directed this towards her father, determined not to engage in business talk with Irma.

‘Fleur, please don’t fret,’ her stepmother said in a soothing tone. Irma knew just how to poke hard enough to bait and win the reaction.

‘I’m not fretting,’ Fleur replied. ‘But if it’s to do with the business, then it is something that I have some say in.’

Henry sighed. ‘It is not business, my darling. And it is not Bert Coglin.’

‘Shall I tell her, dear?’ Irma asked.

‘Tell me what?’ Fleur was aware she sounded demanding, petulant even, but she couldn’t take it back now and her attention was riveted on her father. Something ominous was approaching; she could feel its stalking presence making her skin prickle.

‘Irma!’ Henry snapped.

Her stepmother ignored Henry. ‘It’s high time you were stepping out with a young gentleman, Fleur. It really isn’t very natural to be your age and so ignorant of men. Actually, let’s not beat around the bush. You’re in your late twenties and in old-maid territory, my girl. Your father and I think it is—’

Fleur’s mouth was open in shock listening to Irma. ‘You know nothing about my private life and social engagements.’ She turned to her father. ‘You’re talking about Jimmy? Jimmy Coglin?’

Irma put her cup and saucer down noisily. ‘So what if we are? James is quite taken by you.’

Fleur looked back with incredulity. ‘Irma, have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘How dare you!’

‘No. How dare you? What makes you think I need your assistance in my life, romantic or otherwise?’

Henry made soothing noises but both women ignored him. ‘I’m going,’ he said, sounding as wearied as a man could.

‘Mind what I said, Henry,’ Irma pressed.

Fleur looked to her father with an aggrieved expression, and he turned away from her. ‘Don’t wait up,’ he said, not even looking back.

It seemed she would have to fight this battle alone. She returned her gaze of scorching disdain towards her stepmother. ‘I am not interested in Jimmy Coglin.’

‘And I am no longer interested in having a 29-year-old spinster living off us for much longer.’

Fleur could barely believe what she was hearing. ‘Irma, I think you’ve got that twisted around. My father and I were doing just fine until you came into our lives. You were his secretary, let’s not forget. Now, suddenly, you’re a lady of means and it’s my father and I who work very hard to provide those means for you.’

Irma stood. She wasn’t tall, but Fleur watched the hateful woman swell to her full height and inhale so that her large breasts loomed like a shelf before her. ‘You’re not happy here, Fleur,’ she mused, adopting a conciliatory tone. ‘And I no longer feel it’s necessary for us to be pandering to your needs. Time for you to make your own way and stop leaning on this family.’

Fleur couldn’t imagine feeling angrier than she did in this moment. This family? She opened her mouth to respond but Irma continued in her mock sympathetic manner.

‘I know you’ve stepped out with some young men, but dear, it’s time you stopped searching for that grand love like all those books you read and films you watch. It isn’t like that in real life. It’s like your father and me. No fireworks, but loyal and solid.’

Fleur blinked. She was sure her father would not describe his present marriage in this way. No spark at all. Stolid, more like, she thought, and that was being generous. ‘I can assure you my father does not feel about you how he felt about my mother.’ It was an uncharacteristically cruel barb, but Fleur felt herself losing control. Rein it back, she pleaded inwardly.

‘Maybe not,’ Irma replied, annoyingly calm, deflecting the arrow that was meant to wound. ‘But he’s married to me, isn’t he? I am legitimately Mrs Henry Appleby. Meanwhile, Fleur, you are the orphan that was taken in. You’re not blood.’ She gestured towards a photo of Mae in a silver frame over the fireplace. ‘Mae couldn’t have a child, as I understand it. If we’re going to sling the idea of belonging at each other, then you are as much an interloper into this family as I am. You may bear his name, but it was never yours to begin with. I gather your surname was Mason.’

Irma chuckled and it had a horribly tinny quality to it. ‘Oops. You didn’t know that, I see,’ she said, looking like she wanted to hug herself. ‘Yes – Mason. As in the jar. As in the stone worker. Nothing too high and mighty, then. Given up by your own mother . . . Who knows if she was even married. Probably not. She could have a been a street walker, for all we know. Whatever she was, you were not in her plan. Unnecessary. Unwanted. Tossed away like rubbish. And yet here you are, clinging to Henry Appleby as if you are of his flesh. You’re not, dear. I’ve as much right to his name as you do. We’re equals, you and me. You’re just another name on his will, and you’ll get less than you imagine if I have any say. Your father’s drinking himself to an early death each night at the Prince of Wales, or hadn’t you noticed?’

Irma gave a theatrical shrug. ‘I can’t save him from himself. Pity, but there we are. I’ll just have to soldier on, do my best with the Appleby name and its fine business.’ She strolled over to the mantelpiece and made a show of staring at the photo of Mae Appleby. ‘Pretty young thing, I’ll grant you. I must get Jean to dust here properly.’ To Fleur’s complete horror, Irma hawked up and spat a gob of saliva at her mother’s picture. ‘Needs a good clean,’ she said, turning to give Fleur, rigid in her shock, a disarming smile. ‘I’ll invite young Jimmy over for dinner. I think he has something important to ask you.’