What did I mean? There was the pressure inside me, building up inside my skull, threatening to break through the bones. ‘Ted was a great nose, a fine perfumer, but that wasn’t enough for him.’ I chose the words carefully, biting them off with my tongue and teeth. ‘He always wanted something more. There was so much yearning in him. He wanted to be rich and he never was. He wanted glamour but except for the illusion of perfume his life was humdrum. He thrived on secrecy, that nose-tapping and winking kind that men who think of themselves as men of the world go in for. To do with deals, scams, setting up little businesses. I think he must have lived through his fantasies and the reality was always disappointing. Women ultimately disappointed him. His daughter did, too.’

Mel leaned back in her chair. ‘You are his daughter.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you talk about the relationship as if it involves someone else.’

That was truer than she realised. Somewhere within the numbness around Ted’s death there was raw grief, yet I could only touch the outlines of it. As if the bereavement didn’t belong to me, but to someone I knew. As if I weren’t entitled even to the painful connection of grieving and therefore the potential relief that lay beyond it.

‘Mel, I’m not you. I didn’t grow up in your family.’

‘What about his house?’

‘Still there.’ Locked up, since the day of the cremation, with all his possessions inside it. Brooding, waiting for me.

‘Are you going to go and sort it out?’

‘Yes.’ It came to me now that my reluctance formed part of the numbness. Of course I feared going back to his house and unlocking the memories, but sooner or later I would have to make myself do it.

Mel insisted, ‘I’ll come and help you. I’m sure Graham and Caz will as well.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

I knew I didn’t want anyone else to be there, not even Lola and Jack. It wasn’t just furniture and clothes and memories I had to deal with. It was the way the very scent of the place entered into me and shook my soul.

FIVE

I unlocked the front door of Ted’s house and gently pushed it open.

The draught excluder caught on a heap of letters and circulars lying on the doormat, so I stooped down and cleared them out of the way. I was breathing hard. The air in the hallway smelled dense and mouldy.