I must be imagining it, but it seems his tone is softer, kinder, for a moment, and the parent he could have been is apparent for a split second.

'You do?' Mum says. She runs her fingers along the mantel-piece, as if checking for dirt. 'I never knew. Always, I thought I was the only one. And I couldn't tell. Look, look at us,' she says, almost hysterically. She waves her arm round the empty white room. 'Look at the - what this did to us, to our family. I -Damn! Damn her.'

'Mum—' I go over to her, put my arm on her shoulder. 'Don't.' Someone drops something in the kitchen, I think it must be metal. It clatters loudly, recalling us to the present. I look at her. 'What happened? Please tell me.'

Mum glances at Arvind, and at me, and speaks softly, urgently.

'We fought. Not physically. I mean we shouted at each other. Oh, God. I - oh, she made me so angry! But I would never have hurt her. We were young, you know how sisters fight.

We both had tempers, you know . . . I wanted to tell Dad about Mummy.' She looks again at

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Arvind and then carries on. 'I - I wasn't getting on with her. I don't know if I ever did, really. I always felt she didn't like me.' She smiles. 'Always. What a strange thing to say about your mother. Isn't it?'

'Yes,' I say. I look at her and wonder, quite calmly, whether she, my own mother, ever liked me. I don't know that she did. The sins of the fathers, Arvind said, and perhaps he's right. He knew.

'I wanted revenge, I suppose. Wanted to show her/ was grown-up now, I could call the shots, all of that rubbish. She was always putting me down. And she had every right to, I wasn't - I wasn't—' She blinks, and two fat mascara-flecked tears roll slowly down her cheeks. 'I wasn't a very nice person, back then. I was horrible to her that day . . .

'Cecily said we could never tell. She got crosser and crosser. I did too. We were shouting at each other, at least I was shouting at her, she was just standing there at the top of the steps down to the beach, shaking her head. I think she didn't know what on earth to do. She was so young, you know. Fine time to lose your trust in the people you love most. She said I didn't know what love is, that I'd never know what it meant. I said she was just a silly little girl. And she smiled.' Mum nods slowly. 'I'm an idiot. I know why now. Hah! I know why. I can still see her face. She sort of stepped back, and - and . . .' Her voice cracks. 'She just disappeared. She made this strange sound. "Oh!" As if she was surprised. Annoyed. And then - she just . . . she just disappeared . . .' Her shoulders heave, and she sobs.

'Oh, Mum,' I say. 'I told them all this,' she says, putting her hands in front of her face. 'That she just stepped off and slipped, the stairs were dangerous.' She looks up as though she wants my approval, there is the track of a tear on her cheek. 'The police believed me. But somehow it never quite stuck with everyone else. I never knew why. Archie appeared immediately after it happened. Thank God. He ran down to the beach - he nearly slipped too.' She stops and then she says, 'Dad, someone should have done something about those steps a long time before.'

Arvind says, 'There, as in many other areas, we were deficient in our care of our children, Miranda.' His thin old fingers tap his knees, worrying at the creases in his trousers. His face is terrible in its sadness.

She doesn't say anything immediately, and then she nods. 'All that time,' she says. 'It was so long ago, you know. And it's like everything's stood still since then.' 'I think,' Arvind says, 'for your mother, it did.'