‘Good to see you’re paying attention.’ She stepped back inside the mint-green door she’d come out of, and seconds later opened the red door right next to it that I’d knocked on. ‘Spooky, isn’t it?’

‘Does your neighbour know you’ve made a secret passage?’

‘I am my neighbour. I needed a bit more space, the place was up for sale, I love living here, so I bought it. Cool, no?’

‘So when are you getting rid of the spare door?’

‘No plans.’

‘Not going to paint them the same colour at least?’

‘Nope.’

‘Want me to do it while I’m here?’

‘On your holiday? Hell, no.’

So I stepped inside on to the polished timber floor of a hall that was twice the size it had been on my last visit, and didn’t question the entrance arrangements again.

I unpacked my stuff and took a shower in the swanky granite bathroom that stretched across her two converted lofts, and we headed out for the night. Our first stop was a dingy pub with furniture fashioned from old bicycle parts. The place was packed: guys with massive beards and nose rings, girls with green and purple hair; everyone displaying their individuality by looking roughly identical to one another. Standing at the bar, I nursed a pint of Foster’s with a lemonade top while Aunty Kaye sank two Black Russians.

Gramps had muttered a few complaints on the subject of our drinking together in the run-up to my holiday, going so far on one occasion as to suggest that she was a bad influence. But she was nothing of the sort. When you’re an only child living with your grandad, you do get passed around a bit. And I’ve found that there’s two ways people take care of you: they either think up a load of kid-friendly stuff to do and then pretend they’re enjoying it too, or they just integrate you into their own life and show you what’s great about it. That’s what Aunty Kaye did, and it always beat walking round a funfair with a dead-eyed smile in tow.

We ate in a little Korean restaurant tucked away on a residential street, so discreet that you’d walk straight past and not know it was there. Squeezed together on a tiny table in the packed basement, little slivers of meat were cooked over a flame between us and served with sticky sauces that covered me in sweat. We’d never eaten in the same place twice in all the years I’d been visiting, and it seemed unlikely that there were many cuisines left for her to introduce me to. We talked about my music, the beach buggy I’d started to build at home, and we talked about Mum.