Diane turned round, a family pack of loo rolls in her hand, and peered over her half-moon glasses in the direction of the voice. When she realized who was calling her, the warrior-queen resting expression softened into something more welcoming. ‘Oh hello, Tara, love!’ she said.

Diane Sefton was her mother’s best friend and lodger – or she had been, until a few months ago. She’d moved into Keith’s studio at the bottom of the garden just after Tara left for university, when Ruth needed money and Diane’s own philandering husband, Ivor, had been caught in flagrante with one teaching assistant too many. Diane and her collection of screen-printed scarves and dog-eared political handbooks had turned Keith’s minimalist creative space into what Toby dismissively referred to as ‘an Oxfam shop with a bed in it’, and she lived there until Ruth sold her interiors business and decided the studio was the ideal Airbnb project for her retirement income. Then Diane took over Toby’s old attic domain and they carried on as before: arguing about the news, nagging the other about their drinking, and quietly supporting each other through the big and small pains of middle age. Despite being diametrically opposed on almost every political standpoint, from nuclear power to oat milk, Diane and Ruth were good friends.

Diane had only just moved out of Wye Villa. When Ruth died, Tara had had several months left on her own tenancy, so she’d been happy for Diane to stay until she found somewhere else. It also gave Tara time to get her head around the empty space in her life where her mother had been. It wasn’t that they’d lived in each other’s pockets – far from it, really – more that Mum had … always been there.

‘These are for the clothes bank,’ she said quickly, as the cold wave of loss swept over her again. Not the tidal wave it had been at first, but still a wash of sorrow that froze time for a second. ‘Some of it’s a bit smarter than what we’ve been giving out, but I kept thinking about that poor woman last week who needed to go to job interviews and had nothing to wear, and I thought, Mum would want me to do this.’

‘She absolutely would,’ said Diane.

They both paused.

‘Well, no,’ Diane conceded. ‘She’d put up a fight first, just to be contrary, and probably have something to say about people who didn’t get insurance.’ She blinked hard, her eyes glassy. ‘And then I’d find two bags of skirts and jumpers by the front door in the morning.’

Tara blinked too. Her mum had always been kind. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

Diane wriggled her half-moon glasses back up her nose. ‘Oh, I miss her, Tara. Even our daft arguments.’