Before we left for the funeral home, Amber threw together an Ottolenghi salad and summoned us to the kitchen table.

‘Pass me the hummus, will you?’ Emerald asked, falling into a chair and pointing to the tub on the counter in front of Amber.

Amber ignored her. The kettle clicked off and she slowly warmed the teapot.

‘For god’s sake, it’s not as though I’m asking for your stash of Colombian cocaine, Amber. Just pass me the bloody tub.’

I leapt up out of my chair as if electrocuted, to fetch the tub in order to short-circuit the clash.

‘Can I get you anything, Ruby?’ Amber then asked with the most courteous of smiles.

‘Yeah, you could take that knife out of her back,’ Emerald said through a half-chomped mouthful of salad.

‘I could say the same to you. Liberated feminist, or amoral slut? Defend your answer,’ Amber retaliated.

We drove our mother’s new Merc to the funeral parlour. While my sisters fought over which one of them should take the wheel, I diplomatically slipped into the driver’s seat. The bickering and niggling continued in the car – especially over who should give the eulogy at the funeral.

‘As the eldest, it should be you, Emerald,’ Amber decreed.

‘Jesus Christ, no! I’m far too atheist. I find it hard to square the idea of a loving god with the existence of ichneumon wasps, which lay eggs in caterpillars that then hatch and consume the poor thing from within. Not to forget famine, war and childhood cancer, oh, and sisters who screw their brothers-in-law.’

‘Oh, god, have you ever thought of not giving your opinion, Emerald? I really think it’s an option we should explore,’ Amber said, scathingly.

‘Let’s explore you speaking at the funeral, then. You never seem to want to shut up at other times.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at me. I haven’t done my roots, my nails are chipped, and I’m living out of my car boot, where my only change of clothes is a beige tent dress and Birkenstocks.’

‘Well, that’s true,’ the perfectly groomed Emerald said, giving her sister a full body scan. ‘I’ve seen better dressed salads.’

By the time I’d reverse-parked into a tiny spot right outside the funeral home, I was so fraught and overwrought from my sisters’ arguing that I dropped the coathanger holding the clothes Ruth was to be cremated in. I scrambled to snatch up the bra, shoes and sequined Carla Zampatti frock from the dirty pavement. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum . . . Oh, god, girls. I’m talking to a bra,’ I said, then hugged the dress dangling on its hanger as if Mum were inside it. It was the first time I’d hugged my mother for as long as I could remember.