Rabbit has always sickened Mummie, along with other people’s illnesses, housekeeping, children, nannies, sex (rabbits again) – in fact anything concerning appetite or other people.

Neither Gina nor I – both of us, as it happens, Jewish – belonged to the hunting set depicted in Molly’s novel and to which her subsequent editor, Diana Athill, did belong; but we did recognise a good book when we saw one. Rather, she enlarges the novel’s reach into a wider culture of secrets and silences, of doing it but not saying it. It was a BookBub offer and reading my Goodreads’ friends reviews, I knew I was in for an unusual read and it certainly is!Richard was a beautiful child and, despite a proper interest in and aptitude for all the importances of outdoor life, there were times when he would lean in silence against Mrs Brock as she played the piano, or even join her in singing ‘Speed Bonnie Boat’, ‘Yip-i-addy’ or ‘Now the Day Is Over’. It also supports my view that I have different tastes to the Man Booker Prize committee, as well - I'd never have nominated this. The rest of the book beings us back to Aroons’ birth and then moves forward to when she is in her 30s. These are the dying days of Anglo-Irish aristocracy where appearances must be preserved and emotions muted and controlled. That includes a repellent mother, a failed painter who hates children and dogs and lets the family devolve into penury; a father with more passion for outdoorsy things than the task of supporting of the family (and who helps himself at will to the flesh of myriad women, servants included); and a brother, Hubert, handsome and dissolute, who exploits Aroon’s most tender vulnerabilities to hide his homosexuality.

A superb comic creation, Mrs Brock is a middle-class widow, given to playing the piano, knitting, and falling in love with her employers.

It might be in the wonderful tension between the characters, the spite, misunderstandings so much going on unsaid – the sad loneliness of being part of a family like the St, Charles. Or they get you drowned with an unwanted baby inside you, which is the punishment meted out to Mrs Brock.