‘Joanna! Where’s my drink?’

Back in the living room, I put the fresh drink in her hand, and sit opposite.

‘What’s the OxyContin for?’

‘My back pain. You have no idea how bad it is.’

‘I noticed there’s no pharmacy sticker. Did you get a prescription for it?’

‘Oh Joanna, you’re such a goody two-shoes. You never change. You were like this as a kid too – everyone your age out sneaking smokes and getting drunk on their parents’ vodka, and you, hunched over your books, all alone in your room.’ A smile and a faux-sympathetic headshake. ‘No wonder you had no friends.’

I had no friends because I couldn’t bear to bring anyone here – to meet you, to see how we lived, I want to scream at her, but there’s no point. She’ll never get it. Instead I pull her back on topic.

‘We’re talking about you now, not me, and about the painkillers. Did you get them from a pharmacy?’

A sigh. ‘Who cares? Lighten up. I have few small pleasures left.’

This, from the woman who spent my childhood partying.

‘OK, just promise me you’ll stop injecting. It hits your system far too quickly.’

‘That, Joanna, is precisely the point.’ She lies back, eyes closed.

God, she’s impossible. Why do I still care? After everything she’s done, why on earth do I care? I need to get what I came for, and go.

‘I was wondering …’ I say carefully.

She looks at me, her lids half closed.

‘One of the kids has a project at school to make a family tree. And they need photographs of me as a child. Would you have any still?’

A lazy blink that tells me nothing.

‘Remember there was a box of old photos in the bottom of your wardrobe?’

‘Oh yes!’ She sits up now. ‘I’d forgotten. I was quite good, wasn’t I? Quite an eye. I should have kept taking photos.’

‘You were good. I remember.’ Like every new infatuation, her love of photography burnt from obsession to complete disinterest almost overnight. Like sketching. Like writing. Like Lila.

I, on the other hand, never warranted the obsession part.

‘I’d love to see them again. Can I check in your wardrobe?’

She flops back on the couch, waving her hand. Go, go.

The box is smaller than I remember, and far less exotic. A shallow, square tin that once contained shortbread biscuits. The lid comes away easily and inside, just like in the cutlery drawer, the contents are in disarray. Photographs in a variety of sizes; some black and white, some colour, all bleached with age. My fingers fumble and the photos slip when I try to take them out. This is it. This is where I’ll find the truth. Lila was locked in when Cynthia went out – for her own safety, she said – but when the three of us were here, Lila was free to run around the flat. There won’t be any day-trip photos in this box; no visits to the zoo, no playgrounds or beaches. But Lila played here and my mother took her photograph. And some of them might be in this box.