‘Jeez, girl,’ she said when they were out of Stefan’s earshot. ‘Wouldn’t that be the perfect end to a perfect day? Sweaty Stefan rubbing his fat belly, his buck-naked fat belly, all over you?’

Suki burst out laughing at that; it was a laugh edged with hysteria.

‘Now you settle down,’ said Felice, squeezing her arm. ‘Cry if you got to, but don’t go doin’ nothin’ that desperate. Your aunt was a great old lady and she wouldn’t want you mixin’ with an arsehole like him.’

When Felice left her and she was home alone in the trailer, Suki went into Aunt Ginny’s little bedroom and sat on the bed, feeling dismal. There was something slippery under her foot and she glanced down and then bent, picked up a magazine and looked at the cover. It was a cruise brochure, dog-eared and faded. She peered under the bed. There were stacks of them under there. Aunt Ginny had lain in here at night and dreamed of that life, cruising the world. A dream that was never going to be realized.

Feeling sick at heart, Suki stood up and went through to the kitchenette and poured out a big measure of Aunt Ginny’s Southern Comfort, the one she kept over the sink for what she called ‘medical emergencies’.

Well, this was an emergency all right.

But the booze made her feel worse, not better. She drank a bit more. Then the room began to spin so she went to her room and lay on the bed and clung to the thin mattress and followed Felice’s advice. She cried hot bitter tears for the loss of the only person in the world who had truly loved her. She cried until finally she slept, and when morning came she was sore of eye and aching of head. Aunt Ginny was gone and she was utterly alone.

She slopped water over her face, towelled dry and dressed and pulled on her old but clean blue shirt-dress, and there protruding from the pocket was Aunt Ginny’s letter that she’d got out the day before the funeral, ready to read. Only she hadn’t been able to summon the nerve to read it. Not then. Now Suki sat on her own bed, her hair uncombed, her head throbbing like a brass band, and stared at it. She slit it open with one fingernail and pulled out the sheet of paper inside and began to read it.

Suki darling, look in the Mickey Mouse tin in the pantry . . .