‘Nathaniel’s fine,’ my mother said.

This was a lie. The dog was dead.

Granma turned to me as though I was a pleasant stranger in need of advice. She gestured to my mother: ‘She lies, this one. You’ve got to watch her.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘Ever since she started doing all that stuff. I said to them all, I was the one born with a caul, but you don’t see me flaunting myself to the bereaved.’

‘I don’t—’ my mother began.

I looked around the room. It wasn’t a big room but it was bigger than her bedroom – I hated it when we had to go and see her in there. The garibaldi biscuits and Imperial Leather talcum powder – Imperial Leather: in another universe it was a fetish mag for colonialists – all got me asking how I could ever enjoy an evening again. How could anyone?

‘As for those cards,’ Granma continued, ‘they used to do it when they were little and I never paid much attention. Eleanor brought some home from a boyfriend one day and a whole troupe of them went up to the loft to use them.’

‘That was a Ouija board,’ my mother said, fluffing a cushion for no one.

‘I heard screaming and went up there and there was a girl with a broken leg lying wailing in the corner.’

‘Something broke her leg?’ I said.

‘No,’ my mother said quickly.

‘She already had the broken leg when she went up there,’ said Granma. ‘But her crutches had come alive and started hitting her. So they all said, anyway.’

My mother looked down.

‘What?’ I said. I had never heard this story.

‘Still, she made an okay living out of it in the end. Not that I ever saw much of it.’ Granma turned to me. ‘You were supposed to get rich and look after me,’ she said. ‘When are you going to marry a rich man?’

‘I am a rich man,’ I said, quoting Cher.

‘I was in Coronation Street,’ my mother said.

‘For one episode,’ my Granma said. ‘No good at putting yourself forward, that’s why. Expects it all handed to her on a plate. Expects them to come chasing her.’

‘I need you to sign something, Mum,’ said my mother, and reached into her bag. She pulled out a small stack of stapled papers.

I looked at a woman sitting in a chair opposite. She was holding a baby doll and trying to feed it from a small plastic bottle. The doll didn’t want to drink from the bottle, so the woman started rocking it instead.

I heard Granma say, ‘Forget what you need. There’s something I need to say to you, Carmen. Something I need to ask you.’

I turned around and looked at her, and for a second it was like she was the old Granma there – lucid as you like. Eyes that could split light.