‘It pays the bills, Mum.’ Just about. The ones that don’t go away just because I’m at home and caring for you, I add to myself but dare not say out loud.

My mum took to her bed with a bad bout of flu, four winters ago now. The flu became pneumonia and there’s no doubt that she was very poorly at the time. But, several courses of antibiotics later and when the pneumonia had run its course, she was still in no hurry to get up. Then she slipped in the bathroom and broke her hip. When she came back from hospital, she eschewed the physiotherapy programme that she’d been advised to follow and took to her bed again to convalesce. She made herself very comfortable there and, since then, she’s simply refused to get up.

Mum has decided that she’s still ill and infirm, no matter how many times the doctor tells her that she’s just fine. She’s stayed exactly where she is and no one can persuade her otherwise. I’ve coaxed and encouraged her. Doctors come and cajole her. Mental-health professionals turn up, try to counsel her and are duly rebuffed. Antidepressants were prescribed, dispensed and found, by me, hidden down the back of the headboard. In short, my mother has decided she will be permanently bedridden and, quite frankly, she loves it.

Now, every day Miranda Merryweather sits in her bed, snuggled in a duvet, surrounded by fluffy pillows, holding court like the queen of a very small country. These days, she refuses to let most people enter her domain. Occasionally, our lovely GP, Dr Ahmed, is reluctantly allowed an audience. I think at first she liked the attention. Then, as the months went on, she simply became entrenched until, finally, she was frightened to get up and go out at all. Now it’s simply become a way of life.

The friends she once had have all gradually fallen away until, now, I’m the sole person at her beck and call. I cook, clean and run the café. While Mum can still get herself back and forth across the landing to the bathroom, she needs my help to shower, and I wash her hair for her too when she requires it. Though some days I don’t have time to wash my own hair. There’s an ever-growing cache of tablets that have to be administered at regular intervals – blood-pressure pills, water tablets, sleeping potions, statins. The list goes on. The longer she stays in bed, the more medicines she needs. I change her nightdress every day and her sheets once a week.

‘Your sister would never treat me like this,’ Mum says.

‘She wouldn’t,’ I agree. ‘You’d starve before you got tea and cake from Edie.’