“Nothing ever makes up for it, Andy, for losing Em. Some days I’ll remember a falling-out we had, because she borrowed my best earrings without asking or locked herself in the bathroom for three hours so I’d had to pee in the garden. And I’d cut off all my limbs to have her back. But you make a place for it. That’s what I tell them—Jack, Faye, the rest of the family. Because I’d get angry sometimes, like they wanted to pretend she was off on holiday somewhere, or hadn’t existed. Oh, that made me hopping mad. People cope differently. I told them, you have to let me do it my way. Faye understands now. She had a miscarriage between her first and the second, and idiots kept saying things like ‘Well at least you’ve got your Shelley,’ or ‘You’ll have another one.’ Like you’re not allowed your grief.”

I swallowed hard. June cut me another slice of cake and slid it across. She asked me about London, about what had brought me back.

“That was Peter? Well, I never. I remember the two of you, right back to infant school. That was a love affair like no other! Em would be ‘Andy this,’ and ‘Andy that,’ and ‘Oh but Andy only likes Peter.’ She was so pleased when you finally became friends. Never shut up about you. Then you started coming round. Do you remember? And she’d whisk you off upstairs so she could have you to herself. It was like having a little wolf about the house. Then I started noticing, after you’d been, all the Tampax would be gone from the bathroom. And I wondered, ‘What’s going on that she’s got to help herself to Tampax?’ And I’d see your mother in town sometimes. I wanted to talk to her, but…” Her face darkened, “Unhappy woman. That’s what I used to think. That’s an unhappy woman.”

June was heading out to pick the littlest one up from playgroup.

“Do you want to see her room? You can let yourself out, or I can give you a lift, after we’re back from swimming. Some days I sit in it, but less now. The girls sleep in it when they stay over. I wasn’t sure about it. But it’s better. They love it. They call it Dead Aunty Em’s room. Horrible, but then kids are horrible, aren’t they?”

I followed her upstairs as if to my execution.

The sun was slanting in under the thatch through the latticed windows, strewing diamonds of light across the floor. The shoebox of My Little Ponies that Em’d kept hidden under her bed was out. Small jumps had been built out of twigs and the cardboard tubes from toilet rolls.

“Might see you in a bit then, Andy.”