I walk across the kitchen and stand at the window looking at the empty roofline opposite. The pigeons have all gone home to roost. It’s early May and the trees that line the garden walls are unfurling crumpled leaves from sticky sheaths. A luminously clear sky is fading into pale almond green behind the roofs and chimneys, and the rinsed clarity of the light reminds me of the evening over a month ago when Ted was taken ill and I was walking through the streets to meet Mel for dinner. I felt strong and lucky then, and rich in my children and my friendships, but now I am gripped by a dismal sense that I have reached the age of fifty and taken a series of wrong turnings.

I turn back and pick up the phone. Lola’s network voicemail invites me to leave a message. Caz and Graham are visiting Caz’s mother. And Mel’s answering machine announces that she is unable to take my call. She is either out on the town with new Jasper or under the duvet with him, and I feel distinctly jealous. Intimacy is a fine thing, but some mindless sex would be welcome. I realise it’s such a long time since I have enjoyed anything of the kind that I have almost – but painfully not quite – forgotten what it’s like.

‘Never mind,’ I say out loud, and my voice breaking the silence underlines my isolation and makes me smile at the same time. I’m going to turn into one of those old ladies who talk to themselves. I’ve moved up into the front line for old age, now that Ted has gone.

I miss my father and I realise that I haven’t even begun to mourn him yet.

SIX

We all had Cassie to kiss and cuddle and play with, at least.

Cassie soaked up our love, with no suggestion that there could ever be too much of a good thing. She didn’t shut herself in her room, or give any of us cause to ask each other if she needed more space or less space. She ran away and hid, but she let us know where she was with squeaks and rustles if we took longer than one minute to find her. She held up her arms to tell us that she wanted to be carried, and when she was hoisted up she sat astride the bearer’s hip and gave an angled-wrist wave like the Queen’s.

I knew that if I crossed the yard from the bindery to the house at lunchtime, or at the end of a day’s work, I could spend a few minutes drawing pictures with her or reading her a story. She divided her favours between her admirers fairly even-handedly but I liked to think that she was particularly attached to me. She called me Sadie-lady, after Evelyn warned her once when they very first moved in not to get egg on the lady’s lovely coat.