Fran and Nick haven’t been married all that long and Fran is coming to the end of her second pregnancy with Nick, but she also has Gareth, an older son by a previous relationship. At the beginning of the tale Nick is going to pick up his daughter Miranda. Her mother has had to go into a mental hospital, as she has had a break-down, she hasn’t coped with Nick’s infidelity and desertion at all well. The family is not a well blended one.

They also have to cope with the renovations in the old house they have bought. Scraping the old wallpaper off seems like it might be a bit of a bonding process, but when a portrait of the original inhabitants of the house is uncovered it spooks Fran, they look just like them, and not in a good way.

But Nick also has the stress of having to help his sister look after Geordie, their father who is 101 years old, and a survivor of the Somme. Although Geordie  survived the war the mental scars have never diminished, have blighted his life and now he is dying of cancer the memories are all coming to the surface.

Pat Barker is a really good writer but there were aspects of this book which were too much like my own father’s death, and that wasn’t something I would have chosen to re-visit.