Back indoors, coffee made, Carla sat at the kitchen table and started to make a list of the things that she needed to organise. Emptying the house and getting it ready for sale would be her first priority. Clothes and books – charity shop; furniture eBay or local second-hand shop? Perhaps joining a local Facebook Buy and Sell group would be the easiest option. No, getting a house clearance firm to come and take the lot would be better.

She’d need to check with Maddy about the white goods – she might like the fridge for her new flat. Once the house was empty and clean, she’d contact some estate agents and get it on the market. The three or four boxes of papers and photos she knew were in a cupboard upstairs she’d put in the car and take home with her. Go through them, deciding what needed to be kept and what could be thrown away, in the comfort of her own home. Then there was the question of where to scatter Amelia’s ashes.

Carla stopped and glanced through the door at the urn on the mantelpiece – looking for all the world as though it had been there forever but where it obviously couldn’t stay. Another memory flashed into her mind. When her dad had died, Carla had asked Amelia if she could be with her when she scattered his ashes, to say a final goodbye.

Amelia had shrugged. ‘Too late. Done the day I got them. I threw them in the river.’

Carla had never hated her mother so much as she did then. Not because of scattering her dad’s remains in the river (the frustrated sailor in him had always loved being down by the river) but because she’d kept silent about what she was doing and denied Carla the chance of a last goodbye. Hadn’t deemed it important enough to ask her to go with her.

But where to scatter Amelia? She wouldn’t appreciate the river. Maybe Maddy would have an idea. There was no rush. It would be sometime yet before everything was finalised.

Her mobile rang. Mavis. The manager of the charity shop where Carla volunteered three mornings a week.

‘Hi, everything all right?’

‘Carla, I’m so sorry to have to ask, and I’ll understand if you can’t help, but I don’t suppose there’s a chance of you being available this afternoon?’ Mavis asked. ‘I’m one short and there’s piles of stuff to sort through out the back of the shop.’

‘Two o’clock okay? I need to talk to you about some of Mum’s stuff too,’ Carla said.

‘Great. See you then. Thanks, lovely,’ Mavis said.