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certain sector of her generation. But now she was shattered like a mirror, broken and tear-stained, barely recognizable. It unnerved him. He looked around for hints of what was wrong, but nothing seemed amiss; the kitchen looked exactly the same as it always had. Of course it would do; as far as he could remember, nothing in the house had changed in forty years. The upright Bechstein in the corner topped with books and papers. The copper saucepans hanging above the antique butcher’s block. The collection of china jugs lined up in height order on the window sill. All unchanged for as long as Jon could remember. The oak farmhouse table – so out of place in their detached townhouse in the smarter part of Chiswick – still held his father’s disorder (piles and piles of papers, a collection of obscure works by eminent French economists here, dog-eared paperbacks of unknown Russian literary geniuses there) organized by his mother as best she could. Every room in the house, including the kitchen, was essentially overflow from the room his father called a study and his mother called the library. He smiled to himself. How had two such contrasting personalities spent so many years living in such apparent harmony? It never ceased to amaze him. Everything about her screamed order, cleanliness and aspiration; everything about his father was bookish, distractable chaos.
    Jon rested a gentle hand on his mother’s. She was so warm, just as he remembered her as a child. Always warm. Like a splendid hot-water bottle, his father used to say with a grin.
    ‘Is it my father?’ Jon asked her.
    Even as the words came out of his mouth he wished he could haul them back in. What if she nodded? What if his father was dead and he had to deal with the aftermath? He wasn’t sure he had sufficient energy for that today.
    She turned to face him; her eyes were soft beneath a film of tears.
    ‘He’s fine. It’s just . . .’ She hesitated. ‘I’m just so tired.’
    Then she shook her head.
    The shake dislodged her tortoiseshell comb, and as it slipped her snow-queen hair came loose. She closed her eyes and pulled the comb fully out and placed it between her lips. She began to smooth her hair back into its proper place, but then she seemed to run out of steam, and her trembling hands fell to her sides. Without a word, Jon stepped towards her and took the comb from her mouth, then rested it beside the sink. He turned her around. She moved without resistance. He stroked her hair, which had aged to the finest strands of bleached silk, and gathered a new ponytail with the experienced hand of a father of daughters. He twisted the ponytail up against her head and pushed the comb into place. Then he lightly touched his fingers to the tortoiseshell. He had always loved the comb. His mother told him often how it had been passed down to her by her grandmother, and to her from an allegedly wild and unknown great-great-grandmother.
    ‘How this comb could tell stories,’ his mother used to say. ‘Palaces, castles, even a prince’s bedchamber.’ And Jon would beg her to tell him. He would sit next to her, gazing at the comb, listening to those tales of passion and daring, fascinated by the way the light caught the milky mother-of-pearl inlays, setting their green and purple glinting. He stared at the comb now; all those decades and barely a scratch.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said.
    She turned back and he stepped closer and tentatively put his arms around her. The last time they’d held each other was the morning after the night Anna fell. Standing there, trying to give her comfort, he was suddenly overcome with memories of that morning. Breaking the news to his parents, his mother’s stoicism, his father’s lack of comprehension. Jon gripped her harder, not for her but for himself – he felt weak, as if he might crumple and bring them both to the floor. He tried to stand tall, but even as he did, he felt the strength in his backbone seep out of him into