‘I bet she didn’t. Is that why you live on the ship? So you don’t have to put down roots anywhere?’

‘Roots?’ she said. ‘Oh, I’ve never given them a chance to grow. Once you’ve been yanked out of one place, it’s difficult to thrive anywhere else.’

‘Great,’ I said, downing as much churro as I could get in my mouth in one go, and even then I coughed some out onto the table top.

‘That same therapist told me something which helped me reframe Simon’s loss. He said that when a woman grows a baby, she retains some of that child’s cells forever. Your baby has left some of her cells inside you where you can never lose them.’

Tears came thick and fast at hearing this.

She gripped my hand. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘No,’ I sniffed. ‘I like that.’

‘The point is that the bond will always be there. There will always be a part of her with you. Always. And nobody can take that away.’ She dried my cheeks with her silk-soft palms. ‘Come on – final stretch. Let’s see what that misogynistic old prick Picasso’s got to offer us, shall we?’

For the last part of the day, we walked around the white rooms of the Picasso Museum. Well, I walked, Caro insisted on using the chair so that we got priority in the queues and elevators. She was almost a more manipulative bitch than I was. No wonder I liked her so much.

I lost Caro on the way round, eventually finding her on a bench, staring at a painting – a 1897 oil on canvas called Science and Charity. Three figures around a dying man’s bedside – a nun carrying a child and a doctor checking the dying man’s pulse on a timepiece. The man’s face was yellow, eyes hollow. Like Dad’s when I last saw him.

‘The old legs are starting to pinch now,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’

I followed her gaze to the painting. ‘You’re dying and you ask how I’m feeling after my coke-induced tantrum?’ I scoffed.

‘It was more than a tantrum, Hilary. You could have killed yourself.’

‘Yeah, well. Thanks for today.’

‘You’re welcome. I have a chiropodist’s appointment tomorrow.’

I frowned. ‘Is that important?’

‘It means I won’t be able to be with you in the morning. But you could come with me and have your feet done if you’d like.’

‘No thanks,’ I said, plaiting the mane on my unicorn keyring. ‘I’ll take my chances with the verrucas. Never been keen on having my feet felt.’

‘Come and find me at lunchtime. I’ll be free then.’