‘Okay, alright. I’ll ring you later,’ I say, but Mum gives me the look, then bundles me out of her house. ‘And what’s changed?’ I say, remembering what she said, but she’s already closed the door.

I climb in the car, pulling out my workbook from the glove box, flicking back through the pages, today, yesterday, last week, last month. It’s all my handwriting to begin with, then I get to March and it becomes a mixture of mine and David’s. I go back as far as last November and see an entry: ‘Susan Smith. Outside pipe. Norton Park Way.’ Next to her phone number is a tick to show it had been sorted. I fling the book on the passenger seat and drive home, detouring down Norton Park Way.

As I drive down the road, it becomes more familiar. I remember next door had a brand-new van on the drive. A VW T5. I’d said to David how I wanted one, that maybe we should get a loan out, get the van all liveried up with our names. He’d not been fussed. I slow down by her house. The T5 is still parked next door. Susan’s own little brown fiesta is parked on the driveway. Tiny trickles of memory begin to filter through – and I’m on her landing. Explaining that we’ve done the outside tap and that she doesn’t really need a new boiler too. Trying to dissuade her from spending money she doesn’t need to spend. She was insistent though. She said that if I didn’t do it she would get someone else. She was quiet, but firm. It was an odd mix. David had shrugged, as if to say, if that’s what she wants. She mentioned names of people she could call and I knew they’d overcharge her, take advantage. We agreed to come back and do some basic maintenance. Sort out a few bits and bobs. I said that if I was wrong and she needed to replace the boiler within twelve months, I’d give her a discount. By the third visit, she persuaded us to come back again and fit the new boiler. That was another couple of days’ work.All in all, I must have spent five or six days working in her house, and David spent another two. In fact, I was there so long, and talked so much, I joked about paying her for therapy. How had she seemed when I left her house that last time? Were there signs? Like the ones I now know we missed with our David? But I barely knew her, and I don’t suppose I’d have noticed even if there were. She was quiet, but I wouldn’t say sad. I guess there was something I can’t quite put my finger on – something different about her. Chatting to customers goes with the territory. But somehow, this had been different.