When we get back to the bookshop, Esen isn’t there. So we sit on the armchairs, telling Deborah about the party. Or at least, Dev does. I sit there, thinking about what she said on the beach, about how choosing not to live is still a choice.

I stroke the tiny mole on the bridge of my nose with my finger as I consider what would be better. Doing what Esen does and locking it all away and keeping it safe somewhere in the back of my mind? Or doing what Dev says and holding on to it even if it makes all of this so much harder?

The answer is obviously the latter, but if I don’t lock it all away – keep it somewhere safe – will I be able to remember the feel of my father’s big, blanketing hugs in fifty years? Or how Poppy’s laugh sounds like the noise my grandmother’s gold bangles make when she claps roti?

What if I lose it all?

What if I lose it all and I can never get it back?

An hour later, I’m still sitting in the armchair, head tipped back, staring up at the ceiling. It makes me think of the high white ceilings in Poppy’s house and before I can tell myself that it’s a terrible idea, I lower my chin and ask Deborah, ‘Do you know Margot Morgan?’

She looks up from where she’s standing behind the counter. ‘Margot Morgan? The physicist?’

I nod.

‘Of course.’

‘Do we have any of her books? Didn’t she write something called Wonders of the Cosmos, or something?’

If she’s surprised that I’m suddenly acknowledging that this is a bookshop after doing little else but sulking on the sofa since I got here, she recovers quickly. ‘I doubt it. We only deal in rare and antiquarian books here.’ She takes off her glasses and gestures at the neatly arranged shelves. ‘First editions, ideally, but for the most part they’re either collectables or signed copies of special or out-of-print editions.’

‘OK,’ I say with a small shrug.

I assume that’s it, but then she asks, ‘Why the sudden interest in Margot Morgan?’

‘No reason,’ I say with a shrug, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘She’s a brilliant woman,’ Deborah says, adjusting the collar of her shirt. ‘She lives near here, actually.’

‘Does she?’ I say, my voice too high as I think about Poppy’s big white house and her big pink bedroom and the loss is palpable.

It fills the bookshop until it feels like I’m suffocating.

Mercifully, before Deborah can say anything else, Esen barrels in.

‘What a knob!’ She doesn’t wait for anyone to ask who she’s referring to, just unbuttons her coat and collapses on the sofa. ‘Can you believe that the bloke I just reaped tried to punch me?’