I’d left it on the breakfast table in the courtyard. I actually remember how indecisive I was. Shall I just leave it? Shall I dash inside? The thought of my hard-won prize getting soaked in the rain forced my decision. By running back for it, I delayed our departure by less than a minute. But our fate was to be decided by an event that was timed to the second. Perhaps there’s a parallel universe where a less vain, less immature version of me didn’t go back for that hat. And the trajectory of his life and those around him wasn’t catastrophically changed as a result.

We joined the slow-moving traffic along the seafront, the smell of motor oil and leather filling the low-slung cabin. Edging forward with the exhaust rumbling beneath my seat, the warble of a crowded beach blew through the open windows.

‘Do you not find it annoying,’ I asked, ‘having me around?’ It was one of those questions best asked when a passenger in a car, with the option of a windscreen to stare out of, and the likelihood of inspiration for a change of subject. But I wanted to know. I’d often heard how parents longed for school holidays to end, and Aunty Kaye had no such obligation to me.

‘Never,’ she said, the tyres chirping as we cut into the flow of the inside lane.

‘I don’t really understand why you’re so good to me. You’ve got this great life down here, surely I’m just in the way.’

She shook her head vigorously. We turned off the crowded main drag and picked up a back road past Brighton Park. The wind buffeted my ears as we were at last free to accelerate. For a minute or two, she looked like she had something to say, but didn’t speak. When she did, her eyes never left the road ahead.

‘I’ve known since I was young that I wouldn’t be able to have children of my own,’ she told me. ‘People think it’s weird how that doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes I think it’s weird that I’m not bothered. But I’ve come to realize that it’s because I’ve got you. And I’m grateful for that. I’m happy with my lot.’

We slowed as she pondered one of two possible short cuts. With a left turn made, she looked over at me. There was no hint of the usual imminent wit in her expression. ‘So no, Ollie. You are not, and never will be, in the way.’

I should’ve told her then how she was the reason that living without Mum seemed more bearable than everyone thought it should be. But I was too busy being touched that she could be so honest with me. So I didn’t. It was weeks too late by the time I even thought of it.