I nodded, holding onto the door handle as though it were the only thing keeping me upright.

‘Be careful with the ladder,’ Mum cautioned lightly as a salmon roll slid slowly off Dad’s chest and fell onto the carpet. ‘Your dad oiled it when we put Jo’s stuff up there and it sometimes comes down a bit fast.’

‘OK, thanks, good to know,’ I said, walking backwards out of the living room and closing the door firmly behind me. ‘Perhaps it’ll hit me in the head and I’ll get amnesia and forget everything I just saw.’

When I got upstairs, I looked at my hand and saw I was still shaking. Did I need to start wearing a bell around my neck? What was wrong with people? I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the task at hand rather than the tuna rolls that had been covering my dad’s nipples.

‘Get the diaries,’ I mumbled to myself, using the torch on my phone to light up at least four lifetimes’ worth of cardboard boxes. ‘Get the diaries, go back to the shed, bleach your eyes and go to sleep.’

Ignoring the boxes marked ‘Books’, ‘Ornaments’ and ‘Kitchen stuff’ in my block lettering, I reached for a smaller box labelled ‘Ros’s Shit’. It was nice of my sister to help me pack up, I thought, frowning at her looping handwriting. Holding it tightly under one arm, I made my way carefully back down the ladder.

‘Night Mum, night Dad,’ I shouted as I dashed past the living room and into the kitchen, making a beeline for the back door.

‘Christ almighty, Gwen,’ I heard my dad screech. ‘Careful with the bloody wasabi.’

Once I was showered, scoured and tucked up in bed, I opened up the box. It wasn’t just my diaries I’d kept, there were all manner of mementos, including one special shoebox dedicated to all things Ros and Patrick. A beer mat from the bar we went to on our first date, an Indian takeaway menu he’d scrawled his number on, the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign I’d nicked from the hotel when we’d gone on a minibreak to Dublin.

Dublin …