A congregation of fewer than ten had gathered for the service. Carla knew her mother, Amelia, always a difficult person to get along with, would have been surprised at even that number. The owners of the care home, duty-bound to be there, two neighbours from Amelia’s street, Carla, David and Maddy representing the family. Edward had left the week before for South Africa, impossible for him to return so soon. The wreath he sent his grandmother though, was lovely.

Standing in the crematorium watching her mother’s coffin disappear behind the curtains, Carla felt the first stirrings of sadness, and anger. Sadness for a mother for whom she’d never felt good enough and anger for the fact that Amelia and Tante Josette had been estranged for over forty years. She’d written to Josette when Amelia had gone into the home, mainly to let her know about her twin sister, but a little bit of Carla had hoped Josette would visit and the two sisters would heal their decades’ old rift. It wasn’t to be.

Josette had written back saying she was sorry to hear of Amelia’s decline but she wouldn’t be coming to England to see her for one last time: It seems a pointless exercise, as you say, Amelia’s mind has switched off so she won’t know me. It would be equally pointless if she were still compos mentis because then she wouldn’t want to see me.

An angry Carla had longed to reply, Come for my sake so I can believe that the two of you once cared about each other. That somewhere in the dim and distant past there was a loving, supportive family in the days before we became the prototype model for a modern dysfunctional one. But she’d recognised the truth behind Josette’s words and had sighed before throwing the letter away.

*

Josette sat in the sunshine at her favourite pavement cafe on the quay in Monaco, the coffee on the table in front of her growing cold, her thoughts lost in the past. She and Amelia had often caught the train from Antibes and spent the day wandering around the principality hoping to see some famous people. Today, though, the memory of a long-ago visit that was to change everything in their lives was on her mind. Today, for the first time in years, she’d caught the train to Monaco to say a final goodbye to her sister in the principality where decades ago she’d been given the news that would start a chain of events that would ultimately change the course of her own life.

It had been Cannes Film Festival time and Amelia and Josette had sat at another pavement cafe, the Cafe de Paris, hoping to spot some celebrities leaving the Hotel de Paris opposite. Or even sauntering up the steps into the casino for a game of roulette.