Dad sat up, pleased. ‘Not terribly well, actually. He was in London until his marriage broke up. But he always seems like a nice boy. Kind.’

‘Yes, he is kind. He was brilliant at the hospital.’ We were at some red lights and I quickly checked my phone.

‘Helena’s fond of him?’ he offered.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Darling, you shouldn’t text and drive.’

‘Sorry.’ I dropped my phone on my lap as the lights went green. ‘I wasn’t actually using it, just looking. And I’d really like to know why that’s so different to reading a map.’

‘Not different at all, but plenty of people drive up the backside of a lorry reading maps.’

My mother was positively perky when we arrived in her ward. She’d been eyeing the door, waiting for us, and was sitting up in bed. The hospital gown was grim and I immediately handed her a pale grey pashmina which she took gratefully. Together we arranged it artfully around her shoulders, this sort of thing being important to Hartley women.

‘Thank you, darling,’ she said as Dad gave her a kiss. I watched as they gazed tenderly at one another for a moment.

‘All right, old girl?’

‘Never better.’

‘Gave us a bit of a shock.’

‘I like to keep you on your toes.’

‘As long as you’re not turning them up.’

We giggled, never a family for public displays of affection. Better at silly jokes and pashminas, which she was readjusting round her shoulders.

‘They took my earrings,’ she told me indignantly. ‘Said I might hurt myself on them. I said I’d been wearing earrings in bed for sixty years and I hadn’t suffered an injury yet.’

‘’Elf and safety,’ I told her. ‘I’ll take them home for you. Are they in here?’ I bent and looked in her little cabinet. Dad, sitting on the other side of the bed, just blinked a lot and took her hand. For once he seemed rather lost for words. The little old lady, last seen being carried into the ambulance, was a very different kettle of fish from the one sitting up swathed in cashmere, demanding her Chanel clips.

‘No, Becky’s got them,’ she told me. ‘Becky!’ she tried to call out, but her voice was thin. It nonetheless carried enough, and I turned to see the sulky redhead, from the waiting room, turn her head as she tucked in a patient. She came across, smiling.

‘More lippy, Cecily?’ She grinned.