Nola used to tell me that if I stayed clean long enough, I too would get a life ‘beyond my wildest dreams’. That was hard to believe.

Yet it had happened. All of it. Including a man as lovely as Harry.

Nola put a mug of tea in front of me. ‘Go on, tell me.’

It didn’t take long. ‘So?’ I asked. ‘Should I go to the funeral?’

‘Was Joey ringing off his own bat? Or on Luke’s say-so?’

‘I didn’t think to ask, and I’m not ringing him back—I have some pride.’

‘Grand.’ She laughed. ‘No one’s making you. Okay, let’s look at the facts. On the one hand you and Luke have unfinished business—’

‘Do we, though, Nola? It was so long ago. Isn’t it—what’s the word when accounts have been inactive so long that they no longer exist?—moribund? Inert?’

‘This might be the chance for you to tidy up some of that mess.’

‘But what if I see him and end up devastated all over again?’

‘What’s your inner voice telling you?’

‘Nothing. Radio silence.’

Nola lapsed into thought. ‘In which case, you must Golden Key it.’

‘No!’ This was a device Nola was far too fond of: when a problem has myriad possible solutions but no clear answer, you put the whole snarly mess into an imaginary box and lock it with a Golden Key—also imaginary. Then, you do nothing. You don’t even think about it: as soon as it pops up in your mind, you put it back in the box and wait until the universe unfolds the answer.

You don’t drive your friends and sisters insane by discussing it until everyone is crying from tedium. No. You just keep your mouth shut and wait it out.

(The reasoning is that humans are weaklings who want the solution which gives the quickest gratification; we deliberately blind ourselves to any medium-term damage. I knew all of this; I just didn’t want to hear it.)

‘Ah, Nola! Can’t you just tell me what to do.’

‘It doesn’t work like that and you know it.’

‘Sorry. You’re right. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Golden Keying it right now.’

Feck that. I was getting a second opinion. But I had to choose my person carefully, so they’d tell me what I wanted to hear. Even if I wasn’t sure what that was.

My sister Margaret was very cut and dried, imbued with a bone-deep sense of right and wrong. I could hear her insisting, ‘You have to go to that funeral! She was once your mother-in-law—have some decency.’