‘Oh, no, no, it’s not the money at all, stop, I don’t need money, Jane.’

She had her daughter’s number scrawled on a beermat, with its edge slightly torn.

‘Can you dial this, dear, I’ve no glasses?’

I dialled. I returned the phone to her ear, but she fast waved an angry hand in the air and continued her swinging legs at the side of my bed.

‘No, no, no, you must talk to her for me? She’s never happy when I’m away on my holidays. You see, she’s a jealous sort. I don’t like to speak much on your phones, case I do anything to them, break them, press a wrong number, dial a stranger,’ she said, motioning it this way and that, ‘feck it up on you.’

She was getting frustrated that I wasn’t playing the game, her game.

The phone rang out and out. Margaret Rose eventually, sensing my apprehension, made a hang-up sign by lifting her thumb and little finger upside down and dropping it slowly downwards.

‘Maybe she screens anonymous calls?’ I said, but Jane didn’t take the bait.

‘Call her again,’ she insisted. ‘Go on, dial her again …’

Daughter in a kitchen. Large red presses. Slate floor tiles. Surrounded by lilies. Attractive. Golfer. A guess. All appliances hidden. Integrated. Little signs of life.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to?’ I asked. ‘Maybe try her?’ offering her my phone.

‘Ah, now, my dear, I wouldn’t know what I was saying,’ Jane fussed.

‘I don’t even know her name, Jane.’

‘Oh, I know, but don’t worry. I don’t know her name myself, half the time.’ Jane extended, laughing and swinging the legs at hip height and with sprinter velocity, she was fit as a fiddle, mind astray, heart pumping. It was a cruel combination.

‘Pretend you’re a doctor,’ she laughed. ‘G’wan, you can, put on a voice, a doctor voice,’ and she began pulling stiff-upper-lip faces and miming a stethoscope around her neck and lifted it to her ears.

‘And you see, ask this precious daughter of mine,’ she said, growing excited, ‘doesn’t she care at all for her mother? Ask her that.’ She paused, then lifted a hand to her face. ‘Oh, and be sure to tell her we’re having our tea outside today on the lawn, all of us. Me and all my friends. That’ll drive her mad.’

‘It’s not picking up,’ I said.

‘Oh, she will, just wait a minute, have you withheld the number?’

‘But it’s not your phone, Jane, does that matter?’ I said.

‘Pardon?’

‘I’m ringing off my own number.’

‘Oh, yes, you’re right, she’d love the excitement of a secret number, see, she’s a little bitch like that. Make sure and tell her about the big tea we are planning. About the front lawn and our plan to bring … bring …’

Margaret Rose took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Umbrellas.’

‘Brilliant, yes, umbrellas. Thank you … make sure and tell her.’

Jane’s picnic tea set was wrapped up still in the bed sheet. We would each dine on a tissue and a set of rosary beads.