‘Hey!’ he said, drinking in the sight of Amelia there before him. ‘Look at you. My God. All grown-up!’

Yes, funny how that happens over fourteen years, Maggie somehow managed not to say out loud.

‘Hi, Dad,’ said Amelia, then blushed violently. ‘That sounds weird. Can I call you that?’

‘If you want,’ he said and shrugged in such a casual, careless way that Maggie felt like throwing her hands up into the air and screaming at his lack of sensitivity. ‘Or you could call me Will?’

‘What do your other children call you?’ Maggie asked through gritted teeth.

‘Well . . . Daddy,’ he replied, shrugging again as if the answer was obvious.

‘Right, so Amelia can call you that as well,’ Maggie said, flint-eyed. They hadn’t even crossed the threshold yet and she was already braced for a fist-fight. He didn’t get it, did he? He still didn’t get it!

‘Mum! Don’t be weird,’ Amelia hissed, elbowing her as Will remembered his manners at last and invited them in.

Philippa’s house had been cosy and comfortable, back in the days when Maggie had come visiting. Although there had always been a hint of wet-Labrador detectable in the air, the place had been spotless and uncluttered, with fresh flowers and hoovered carpets, and a clean-swept hearth. Following Will into the hall now and through to the kitchen, Maggie blinked, as her memories of how things used to be clashed up against the reality of the present day.

The hall carpet, for example, was now dirty and stained, strewn with assorted parts of a wooden train, while someone had idly peeled away strips of the wallpaper below the dado rail, leaving it dangling in sad papery curls. In the kitchen there were small painty hand-prints ascending one wall, a laundry basket full of dirty clothes abandoned in the middle of the floor, and an unidentifiable pan of some yellow-brown slop – curry? casserole? nappy contents? – that bubbled and plopped on the hob. A scraggy black cat with a torn ear walked daintily along the worktops, past smeary jars of rice and lentils and an overloaded spice rack, before pausing to sniff at a crumb-littered bread board.

Maggie thought of how welcoming this kitchen had always been when Philippa was alive, how fragrant the air was with roast dinners and apple crumbles, how it had been the very heart of the home. Now the room felt like a student squat and left her anxious about food hygiene. Glancing sideways at Amelia, she saw that listeria concerns were far from her daughter’s mind, though.

Wide-eyed, Amelia was staring around, beaming. ‘This is so cool,’ she said.