I gave a grateful, inward smile. We three sisters did love each other, despite our mother’s spiteful manoeuvrings. Yes, we could quite happily drown each other under a wave on a regular basis, but we would also give each other a kidney if required. We were the Ryan sisters – the prettiest, wittiest girls at a school renowned for the fact that the girls were forward but the boys were backward, who nevertheless married the first guys we dated in high school just to get away from our unhappy home. As kids, we’d kicked and fought and bruised each other with Chinese burns, but had also huddled in the linen press together to avoid our mother’s drunken rages, cheered each other on at sports days and ball-kneed any bloke who dared to badmouth, grope or malign a sibling. We’d taken care of each other after break-ups, too, going en masse to an ex-boyfriend’s place to retrieve bikinis and David Bowie albums, and to secretly key his car. We were like Orion’s Belt: always there, lined up alongside each other.

My whole life I’d felt I could never live up to my big sisters’ competence and achievements. Even now, aged fifty, I was still the little sister, always running along behind, trying to keep up, calling out for their attention, attempting to make them laugh, ingratiating myself by offering to do too much. I was also the fixer in the family, constantly trying to bridge the yawning chasm of contempt between my two warring siblings, layering on the psychological salve to soothe the emotional wounds inflicted by our manipulative mother. Ruth Ryan had wanted a son but got three daughters, which was another disappointment she hardly bothered to conceal.

‘What about alternative treatments? Surely there’s something you can do diet-wise?’ Amber was doing her concerned head tilt and moist-eyed look, as though already preparing to dash into intensive care with kale cakes and tofu shakes.

‘Oh, Christ, don’t start with your frickin’ fish oil tablets and fruit enemas.’ Emerald rolled her eyes. ‘Ruby does not want to waste any time at a vegan healing festival, urinating in her yurt because a mudslide has barred her exit flap. And, do you know what? No woman should ever be urinating in a yurt next to her own bed.’

Amber bristled. ‘I just couldn’t get the flap open in time. And, anyway, I’m only trying to help. Something you’re too selfish to know about, Emerald.’

‘I’m very unselfishly choosing to ignore that bitchy comment, because we have bigger things to worry about. The point is not to give up, Rubes,’ Emerald pep-talked. ‘A Kev-ectomy could be possible with surgery and chemo. Almost any abdominal operation can be performed laparoscopically—’

‘Which is just Greek for “much, much slower”. I don’t want keyhole surgery. I just want to go on a cruise with my sisters. That’s a much better cure than chemo.’