‘I’m hoping she might be able to join us for Christmas lunch,’ Gramps says.

‘You’re kidding?’

‘I’ve been having a bit of a tussle with her care team over it, but I think I’m winning. High time we got this family back together.’

‘That’d be amazing,’ I tell him. And it would be. Mum hasn’t spent Christmas at home with us for years. It’s always just a dash over to her on Christmas Eve to swap presents, eat some mince pies, maybe sing a carol or two, no more than that.

‘And I had a call a few weeks ago,’ Gramps says, the bounce back in his voice. ‘It was that Louis chap, the guitarist you played with down in Brighton.’

‘Does he remember me? I only met him twice.’

‘Yes, Ollie-wally, he remembers you.’ Gramps stares dead ahead and tuts. ‘He was planning a memorial evening for Kaye. He called to ask if you’d like to play with the band.’

‘You told him where I was?’

‘He was very sad to hear it.’

‘Did you go?’

‘Louis postponed it. Said it wouldn’t be right to do it without you.’

‘That’s silly.’

Gramps looks at me suspiciously from the corner of his eye. He knows I’m touched they’ve waited for me. ‘They’re doing it New Year’s Eve. I thought the two of us could head down?’

‘That’d be nice.’

‘They’d love it if you’d play. If you want to, of course. Only if you want to. No pressure.’ It’s not only hugging that Gramps has been taught in family group therapy. ‘No pressure at all,’ he mumbles again.

I reach for an excuse, but it’s just habit, an instinct no longer required. Within barely a second, the dread has evaporated like mist from a window. I look into my lap. ‘I’d like that. I’d really like that.’

Gramps gives me a wink. The silence falls between us again. But now he’s agitated, fidgety. He looks over every few seconds, but never quite begins a sentence. His left hand jiggles against his leg.

‘There’s something we have to talk about.’ The words tip out of him at somehow the wrong volume and pace.

The lights ahead change and Gramps stares forward as we wait. This, it would seem, is not a stuck-at-a-red-light sort of conversation.

‘A couple of days after you went into hospital,’ he says, once he’s free to change up through the gears, ‘I went to the school to collect your stuff.’

I push myself backwards into the seat. My eyes squeeze shut. What can I possibly say?

His voice is calm, heavy with regret. ‘I’ve not had a decent night’s sleep since.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. It’s a pathetic response.

‘Have you any idea what would have happened to you if anyone else had found it?’