‘Oh, yeah? Simon, eh? On first-name terms with the hired help!’

‘Stop it. And don’t change the subject. He told me about your mum, that she’s blind.’

‘Oh, that. Yeah, it just didn’t come up, I guess. She is who she is. My mum. Anything else isn’t really relevant, is it?’

‘Maybe not, but I just thought you might have said something, when you were talking about her. The sewing, the buttons …’

‘She doesn’t do any of that stuff now. Can’t, obviously. We’ve still got the box though, of buttons. Ones she cut off my old baby clothes, her wedding dress before she binned it, and Nan’s. And one or two that came off my grandad’s old shirts. Not the sort of thing she’d ever throw away.’

‘I can understand that. So, how did it happen? Losing her sight? Simon said something about an accident?’

‘It was a car crash. Five years ago now. She was over the limit – the speed limit and the alcohol one – and drove headlong into a tree. Her head hit the windscreen. Hard. Blunt trauma, they call it. She was lucky to survive it at all, I suppose. It was touch and go for a while.’

‘That’s awful. Was anyone with her? Your dad?’

‘No. It was after they’d split up. He didn’t really want to know. Said she wasn’t his problem any more. It drove a wedge between us for a while, my dad and me. I hardly saw him during the first year or so after it happened, but it wasn’t his fault, was it? Although, to listen to Mum, it was. If only he hadn’t got mixed up with this other woman, if only he hadn’t left, then she wouldn’t have been there, would she? Driving at night, by herself? That was her logic anyway. But it wasn’t Dad’s fault. He didn’t make her get behind the wheel after too many gins. So I sort of forgave him eventually. Missed him, really. The Sunday meet-ups, the burgers and all that, even though I was too old by then for an afternoon at the swings. No, it was my nan who swept in and took over while Mum was in hospital and after she came home. There was nobody else, really. Only me, and I wasn’t up to the job. Not then. Mum doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, you see, and the few friends she had just kind of shied away after …’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘People can’t deal with it, can they? Don’t know what to say, so they don’t say anything. Anyway, Nan practically lived with us for a long time, made sure I kept going to school, ate properly. She went back to her own place for the odd day or two, weekends mainly, just to keep it going really, but she more or less gave up any life of her own for us. I don’t think we’d have coped without her.’

‘They’re great, aren’t they? Grandmothers? In times of crisis. I still miss mine.’