‘Not even a hairline fracture.’ I cannot tear my eyes from the picture, which has been cut from an article that appeared in a local newspaper last September. Three whole months ago. All that time, I was living my poor imitation of a normal life, not knowing this was out there.

Princess Anne’s skirt and jacket are sewn from maroon and navy tartan. My grandmother is wearing her favourite dress. A background of dried earth, sprinkled with flowers the shade of wet mud. This is an adventurous pattern and pallet for my grandmother. Her white wisps of hair look lit from within.

My grandmother is standing, a wooden walking stick shaped like a candy cane in each hand, and care workers on both sides, ready to catch her if she crumbles. I think of my grandmother as tall, but she is stooped and tiny in front of Princess Anne, and looking up at her with a slant eye. My grandmother is not trying to please. My grandmother is never trying to please. Princess Anne bends towards her. The princess’s back is straight and perfect and in line with her neck and head. Only the hinge of her waist moves. The impression is that she is paying homage to my grandmother, rather than the reverse, as you would expect. This is exactly how my grandmother thinks things should be.

My grandmother says, ‘Will Princess Anne be coming to see me again soon, Holly?’ Despite my shock, and my fear, a small part of me registers that at least my grandmother has remembered my name. ‘As soon as she gets a chance, Grandma.’

I am not much of a royal follower. But staring at the photograph, I recall Princess Anne’s visit, and the excitement it occasioned in the residents and staff at the care home. I was working that day, and happy to miss it.

Katarina hurries in, wearing a red Santa hat with a white pom-pom that matches the one she put on my head when I arrived. She has on a tinsel bracelet and necklace, too. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Just a water spill. All dry now.’ I hold out the photograph. ‘How thoughtful,’ I say to Katarina. ‘Is this from you?’

She nods. ‘I think Mrs Lawrence likes it.’

‘She does. That was so kind of you.’ I am trying to seem pleased when I am anything but. But the damage is done. However I seem, it will make no difference now.

There is a tagline beneath the photograph. The Princess Royal talks to Oaks resident Beatrice Lawrence, 93.