And then there was the shopping. I visited the shops every day because everything had to be fresh. In vain did I murmur of refrigeration and its benefits. Every day at ten o’clock in the morning I left the house, squeezed tomatoes, inspected fish, sniffed at melons and then lugged the whole lot back home again. Every single day. I actually expected to be doing this for the rest of my life.

Which brings me back to the seagull. Almost every moment of every day was overlooked by that awful bird with its preda­tory beak and evil eyes. One of them wasn’t set quite right, giving it an evil leer which followed me wherever I went. Apparently, her husband, my grandad, had stuffed it for her as a personal gift – I’m not sure what that says about either of them – and then died shortly afterwards. The two events were probably unconnected, but it was enough for her to enshrine the thing in pride of place at the top of the stairs, where it was an eternal reminder of her dead husband.

And then I dropped the stupid thing.

I don’t know how it happened. Probably I was away with the fairies, which was how my grandmother usually described me. According to her I was a feckless daydreamer – a useless wimp – who would have starved to death on the streets if she hadn’t taken me in. Or perhaps I was more tired than I thought. I only know that as I picked up the glass case to dust underneath – because she’d know if I hadn’t – it was heavier than I remembered and the whole thing slipped out of my hands and crashed on to the floor.

The glass case shattered and the long-time inhabitant just fell apart. Heaven knows how old it was or how long it had been there, but it didn’t take kindly to being bounced off the gleaming parquet (forty-five minutes hard polish every other Thursday). The body hit the floor with a soft explosion of what looked like sawdust and the head skidded off underneath the highly polished walnut chest of drawers (fifteen minutes hard polish every other Thursday – before doing the floor but after cleaning the windows) and out of sight.

I stared, appalled. I had no idea what to do. When I thought of the way she carried on if I so much as dropped a cup, I could hardly begin to imagine what this disaster would earn me. My agitation even caused me to run in small circles as I tried to work out whether I should try to reassemble things – no chance. Or try to hide the evidence – no chance. Or even try to deny there had ever been anything there in the first place. ‘What seagull, Granny?’