I knew what they meant. My heart gave a wrench of protective love. This was my chance to break my mother’s vice-like grip on my sisters. If I could convince them to escape her acrylic-nailed clutches, just this once, I felt sure they could learn how to be happy again. It was time to lay it on thick. Hell, it was time to get out the industrial-sized cement trowel.

‘My darling sisters. The cancer diagnosis has made me suddenly reassess everything.’ I was amazed at how good I’d become at lying in such a short time. I patted myself on the back, metaphorically. Then another cold wave of self-loathing hit me. In a spasm of guilt I made a quick mental list of all the people worse than me – Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Dick Cheney, that bastard who invented Spanx – then made another silent, sacred promise to confess the truth the minute I got my sisters aboard. But I just had to get them on that bloody boat first.

I grabbed hold of their hands. ‘A now-or-never feeling has taken hold of me. I can’t stop thinking about all the wonders of the world I’ve never glimpsed. The Great Wall of China. The Taj Mahal. Machu Picchu—’

‘Chris Hemsworth naked,’ Emerald reminded me, licking her lips.

‘Exactly. My brain is jumping from one missed opportunity to another. I’ve never skydived. Not that I want to . . . But I want to have the opportunity to at least chicken out of it at the last minute! I want to ride an elephant and swim with a whale. I want to learn astronomy and read the night sky. I haven’t seen the aurora borealis, let alone a solar eclipse. I’ve never read Proust. Or been in a threesome.’

‘Darl, you’ve never even played doubles at tennis!’ Emerald mocked.

My hangover was finally abating. I felt energised and determined. ‘Exactly. I want to have adventurous sex, say, in a broom cupboard – a broom cupboard aboard a scientific research ship heading to the South Pole.’

My sisters looked at me quizzically. I couldn’t blame them. I sounded weird even to my own ears, as if I were trying out someone else’s personality, someone much more feisty and fabulous than me. But maybe this was my true self, finally shining out from beneath the family bushel?