Helena and I could. Part of the fabric of my parents’ marriage involved spectacular flirtation on my mother’s part which always went absolutely nowhere but amused my father no end.

‘And then, blow me down,’ she’d say around the lunch table in our youth, about some poor besotted admirer, ‘he made a terribly improper suggestion, after I’d simply agreed to help him choose some cushion covers in Beaconsfield!’ Whereupon Dad would roar with laughter. Somehow it didn’t feel quite so funny, these days. Dad, too, would still regale us with his conquests, but they were tamer in nature: the girl in the chemist who, in her quest for the right knee bandage, had asked him to roll up his trouser leg, to which he’d retorted, ‘Only if you will!’

This charm offensive to anyone deserving enlivened their days, and no doubt reminded them of younger ones. And let’s face it, there’s precious little charm about these days. It’s hardly crime of the century. But it was about all there was left, now. Because the awful truth was that Mum’s eyesight was deteriorating to such an extent that she was practically disabled – although, God help us, she still drove – and any help came in the form of my father, who shielded and protected her, but who faced his own disabilities, with what he dismissively referred to as his gammy legs. How long could this situation go on?

‘Have you eaten?’ I asked helplessly.

They looked at each other rather vaguely as if trying to remember. I got to my feet and went to the kitchen with Helena on my heels, hers much higher and sharper than mine. It occurred to me that she’d clearly just abandoned her desk in the City and headed straight down, believing I couldn’t be trusted to take control.

‘This time we have to at least insist on AA for Mum,’ she told me as I opened the fridge, more through hope than expectation. Sure enough, a lemon for the gin and a packet of curly ham greeted me. I retrieved the ham and, realizing the fridge was filthy, quickly shut the door.

I sighed as I turned and regarded my very professional sister, the one who’d made such a success of her life: an equity partner in a major accountancy firm – although, as my son Ned said when I mentioned Helena’s triumphs in envious tones, when had making a success of one’s life on those terms ever got anyone into the kingdom of heaven? If my daughter Imo was present she’d roll her eyes and disappear, but Ned’s simple faith, which exasperated me on many occasions, was a comfort to me where Helena was concerned. Not that I necessarily felt I had a free pass into the holy stratosphere, but some half-remembered parable about camels and eyes of needles helped.