The Second Life of Sally Mottram. David Nobbs

the letter to her son. She had an awful feeling that she was going to cry. She didn’t want to. She hoped that she had cried herself out. If she cried again, she felt that she might let it destroy her, that she would cry and cry and crawl away to die like a sick rabbit.

      She had an awful feeling, also, that Judith was going to cry. She had never seen her sister cry. She wondered if she ever had cried. She didn’t cry now, but Sally believed that she had come close to it, that she had been truly moved. But the memory of how utterly she had failed to recognize what was going on in Barry’s head was too recent; understanding Judith was a hope, an objective, but not yet, if ever, a reality.

      Even when Sally had finished speaking, Judith said nothing. Sally had the impression that she had hunted for the correct words and not found them.

      ‘Well, Judith,’ she said. ‘We’d better cancel that viewing.’

      Judith looked shocked, almost as shocked as at anything in Sally’s tale.

      ‘Do we need to? Can’t we just go?’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I’ve already rearranged it. Difficult now to cancel it.’