‘I can’t tell you how much I loathe it, having to clean up day after day when she soils herself. The indignity of it – for her. And I can feel her eyes watching me as if she’s trying to say something and I feel it’s a reproach. We’re alone together so much, you see. Just her, quite silent, watching – and me. I try to be detached. I stand there wiping her up and think, “You’re a nurse. This is a patient.” But my patients were babies. I always loathed nursing old people. I was no good at it.’ She looked round at me suddenly with frightened grey eyes. ‘When I look at her I see myself. She reminds me this might happen to me. When you nurse people when you’re younger it’s not the same. And the worst of it is, the more time I spend with her the more I can’t help admiring her. Her stubbornness, her independence. Bull-headed as anything . . . Qualities I’ve never . . .’

She sniffed and got up from the bed with renewed briskness. ‘I never thought I’d be saying any of this. It’s ridiculous and self-indulgent. Come along now, we must go down. The others will think we’ve deserted them. Those poor boys could be going off soon to get themselves killed.’

Chapter 10

Granny died shortly before Angus went away to begin his initial RAF training. He came to her funeral, of course, walking with Olivia behind William and me, when I would much rather have had him by my side. My father was silent, slightly stooped, displaying no emotion. Mummy looked haggard, exhausted from the nights of waiting while Granny had been lulled finally to death. To my surprise she wept at the sight of the coffin being lowered into the dark grave.

‘In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord . . .’

I watched numbly then, wondering whether Granny would have been offended that she was being committed to the earth by this rite of the Church of England, but I decided she would have been amused by the irony of it. I found my sadness in our ring of black shoes round the grave, the wind flapping trouser legs and Mr Hughes’ alb and rich purple stole, and Mummy having to hold on to her hat, and thinking how small and defenceless we booked standing there beneath the heavy sky.

My tears came later as I walked back between the silent stones and trees of Lodge Hill Cemetery, this time with Angus beside me. Mummy and Daddy walked slightly ahead of us, slowly, as if they had lead ingots strapped to their feet. I felt I ought to go to them, though I knew no comfort would be possible between us.

‘I shall miss her so much.’

Angus put his arm strongly round my shoulders. He was wearing a black suit which made him look thin and older. ‘Your house will certainly never be the same again. Even though she didn’t get out of her room much by the end, it’s going to feel very empty.’