It was nearly nine when we arrived at the Coach House. To my surprise and trepidation, my parents’ car was in its usual spot and the downstairs lights were competing with the Christmas decorations in the garden.

‘Beatrice!’ Mum exclaimed when she answered the back door. ‘How did you know? It’s like being surrounded by spies,’ she went on, striding towards the living room. ‘Those online groupies of yours are everywhere.’

‘Know what?’ I asked, following her, Henry right behind me. ‘I thought you’d still be with Nana Joy.’

She turned to me with a triumphant flourish. ‘We are!’

It was a flurry of mixed emotions that accompanied the sight of my nana, huddled in her favourite armchair, cradling a glass of sherry with a blanket tucked around her knees.

‘Why it’s… you!’ She beamed automatically, although I could see her mind fumbling for the right name.

‘Sweet-Bea, what a lovely surprise.’ Dad got up from the sofa and came to give me a quick kiss on the top of my head. ‘You were wonderful this evening. Did you see her, Henry? Nana Joy insisted the whole ward watch her granddaughter on the television.’

‘I did.’ Henry offered a quick smile. ‘She was brilliant.’

I didn’t have time to feel pleased that my family had watched my broadcast, or that Henry had, and he thought it was brilliant. While overcome with relief that Nana Joy was home, this was going to make the ensuing conversation even more difficult.

Dad filled me in on what the doctor had said while Mum fetched a pot of tea and granola squares.

‘I’m presuming the two of you aren’t here to announce your engagement, given the general air of gloom when you walked in. What’s happened?’

‘I’m not sure I should say right now…’

‘If this is about Tony O’Dowd, your nana knows what happened,’ Dad said, taking his mother’s hand. ‘We aren’t going to keep anything from her, so now’s as good a time as any.’

With trembling heart, eyes anywhere but on Nana Joy, I told them.

There was a stiff silence once I’d finished. Mum, a myriad emotions flickering behind her eyes, opened her mouth to speak, when Nana Joy beat her to it.

‘Well, I hoped those bloodsuckers wouldn’t work it out until I was dead. But they have, so that’s that. Ursula Brambleton always was a greedy thing. I’m not pleased about it, but I’m not going to waste what precious time I’ve got left getting upset. Besides…’ her wrinkles deepened in thought ‘… the leeches could end up proving useful.’

And so, a plan was formed. There were plenty of objections about exploiting Nana Joy, but she poo-pooed them all, insisting that she’d put up with that for seventy years, she might as well be exploited for good reasons for once.