‘Hey, Sporty Spice,’ Lenny said to his son, ‘looking good.’ Bernard laughed because he liked it when his da called him Sporty Spice – Bernard was odd like that. He stopped eating breakfast long enough to give his ma a hug.

‘Where’s Stephen?’

‘He arrived here half an hour ago with some young one. I sent him home to get Jeff.’

‘OMG we forgot about Jeff,’ Grace said to Lenny, and took her phone out to see she’d missed eight calls. She held it up. ‘It was on silent!’

‘Don’t worry about it, Stephen had forgotten his tie anyway.’

‘Right,’ she said. She turned to her mother. ‘All right, Ma?’

‘Sausage?’ Molly asked.

‘Yeah, go on,’ she said.

‘Your da’s moved into the attic, and I’ll tell you something, if he gets caught up in that fucking beanbag again I’ll . . .’ She walked into the hallway and shouted up the stairs, aiming her voice at the hatch. ‘Put on a suit, old man. Don’t have me go up there, I’m warnin’ ya.’ She walked back to Grace, then as though she’d just remembered something she turned on her heel and walked back under the hole in the ceiling. ‘You can go to lunch when your daughter is buried. Not one second before that, do hear me, Jack?’ She waited for a second before stamping her foot. He peered out of the ceiling. ‘I hear ya, Molly. I hear ya,’ he said, making his way down the steps. ‘The angels in heaven can hear you.’

‘Well if that’s the case you can tell them they can—’

‘Molls, enough of that now,’ he said. Jack didn’t mind salty language, but telling angels to eff off was beyond the pale.

‘Fine,’ she said. She walked back into the kitchen as Grace was plating up sausages and toast for Lenny and herself.

‘Where’s Davey?’

‘He dropped off Juliet and Ryan over an hour ago and disappeared.’

The hackles on Grace’s neck rose. ‘Ryan’s here.’

Lenny stood up. ‘Calm down, Grace.’

‘I’m calm,’ she said. Then she stood up and brushed herself down and walked out of the room. Ryan was on the sofa in the sitting room alone and in silence. She sat in the armchair opposite him, afraid of what she might be capable of if she got too close.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Don’t say because Rabbit would find it funny.’

‘What if that’s the reason?’ he said.

‘It’s not good enough.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Rabbit is gone and making a bloody joke of it is disrespectful,’ Grace said, and her voice shook in anger and sadness.

‘I just wanted to make her proud.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My job was to make her laugh, to say the things no one else would say.’

Grace sighed a deep sigh that came from her very core.

‘Your job?’