‘Because…if I moved in and things went bad I’d have to move out again.’

‘Why would it go bad? You’re punishing Quin for what Luke did.’ Sometimes Margaret could cut to the heart of a messy situation with sharp insight. ‘You’re stuck.’

At times, that was something Nola also said.

‘Have you anything for a headache?’ Helen asked.

‘A good, hard whack in the skull with my stick,’ Mum replied, and they both creased with laughter. Then, ‘Margaret, go out to the fruit bowl and get your sister some tablets.’

A question had been playing on my mind. ‘Do you think Joey told me about the funeral out of the goodness of his heart?’

This caused a spirited and united response. ‘Narky Joey? Joey Armstrong? He isn’t a goodness-of-his-heart person! He’s one of the most terrible men I’ve ever met!’ (Said by Helen. With admiration.)

‘Maybe Luke asked him to tell you?’ Claire said.

In which case…‘I might go. Don’t judge me but it might be good to be back in touch. The way it ended was horrible—’

‘That’s all on him,’ Helen interjected.

‘But we were happy for such a long time…Shouldn’t we at least be civil?’

Margaret had returned, carrying the fruit bowl, which bristled with boxes of tablets, pipette-bottles of drops, tubes of ointment, three blackened bananas and a wizened mandarin orange. ‘You’ve everything. Can I have this tube of Fucibet? There are three here.’

‘Work away.’

‘Headache,’ Helen reminded her.

‘Tablet, caplet or soluble? Aspirin-based or ibuprofen? Codeine—’

‘Surprise me.’

‘If Rachel’s going to the funeral,’ Claire announced, ‘we need a plan.’ She was a great strategist, a big high-up in a charity—which often confused people into thinking she was kind-hearted. Giant mistake. Claire could fire people without having to go to bed for a week with guilt and she got really pissed off if the Crimson Ribbon Day collection was disappointing. (‘Lazy bastard volunteers! All they had to do was stand in the rain, shaking a bucket in people’s faces, it’s hardly rocket science.’)

After subjecting me to a dispassionate appraisal, Claire was thoughtful. ‘You look good. That weight you lost, I thought you might put it back on now that you’re happy again, but fair play, you haven’t.’

Only Claire could turn the greatest trauma of my life into a positive.

‘Could she get Botox?’ Mum asked.

‘I have Botox!’ While I’m nowhere near as bad as Claire, I too have my pride.

‘Where?’ Mum lunged at my face. ‘But you can move your eyebrows!’

‘Botox has improved. Frozen foreheads are a thing of the past.’

‘But then how are people to know you’ve got it?!’

‘Hey!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘Nice earrings!’