SPOILERS!!!
Through Alec's reminiscences we discover that Erica got friendly with a rich American who raised horses, and one night she turned up in Ipswich, where Alec lived from Monday to Friday, and she told him that she was leaving him and moving to America with the man. Alec was upset, especially when she told him that she was taking Gabriel with him, and he argued, but in the end he had to capitulate. Erica claimed that he would see Gabriel often, but in reality Alec doesn't hear from his daughter at all.
When Laura tells Alec about her operation, he wants to cancel Scotland, but she persuades him that he shouldn't. Her idea is to hire a nurse, but then Alec comes up with the suggestion she could stay with his uncle, Gerald, and his new wife, Eve, and Laura agrees.
Alec takes Laura to Cornwall after the operation. Eve and Gerald have been married for two years, and she is happy with him. Eve is a widow and has a grown-up child, Ivan. Gerald was her late husband's superior, and when he died, Gerald was there for her all the time. In the house in Cornwall, apart from Eve and Gerald, there is May, Eve's former nanny, who is now almost eighty and showing signs of dementia. Eve's son, Ivan, lives on the property, and he has a business making furniture with a friend, Mathie, and in another building there is Drusilla and her son, Joshua, who came to live with them when her partner left her. Drusilla is just someone who Ivan met in the pub, and he felt sorry for her and asked his mum for help, and she and Gerald agreed to let her live on the property. Gerald calls all these people Eve helps her lame acquaintances. Another one is Silvia, a friend, who lost her husband a year ago. Her husband was an alcoholic and died because of his alcohol abuse, and now Silvia is lonely and has been left with little money.
Laura comes to stay and from the first moment she feels welcome by this people who she has now met for the first time.
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