The thing is, Lena would have liked to have cleared at least some of the floor of the spare room, but after only half an hour in there it had become obvious that this was the room in which Nic kept her most meaningful junk. Some of it not even junk, to be fair. Boxes of cards and letters. Photos, in envelopes and loose, in albums and frames. Clothes not all shoved in bags, but some folded carefully and placed in boxes alongside other mementoes. One box held a folded dress which Lena immediately recognised as the outfit Nic wore to Dad’s funeral. When Lena pulled it out to be sure—yes, it was distinctive, black jersey with embroidered daisies around the hem and collar—she saw beneath it the order of service and a brochure from the funeral home. There were other papers that Lena didn’t look at because she had spotted, peeking from underneath them all, a flash of yellow. She yanked it out, the bright cotton sundress she’d worn because it was Dad’s favourite. At the chapel, confronting the sea of black, she’d been shot through with shame. Worse, horror. Like a nightmare where you get on the bus naked. Mum was no good that day and Will was surrounded by mates, tall serious young men wearing borrowed suits and expensive sunglasses, so it was Nic who chased after her as she ran towards the car park. Nic who told her to wait in the car, ran back to the chapel, returned only minutes later with a men’s suit jacket and a black patent leather belt. She helped Lena belt the jacket in so it looked, at a glance, anyway, like a sophisticated suit-style mini-dress. Nic took off her own shoes and black pantyhose, urged Lena to put them on, wadded tissues in the shoes to help the fit, showed Lena how to tuck the waistband of the hose into the bottom of her bra to keep them from rolling down. Nic took Lena’s white sandals. The straps cut into the flesh on top of her feet but, she pointed out, they didn’t look so odd with her black dress since there were, after all, those white daisies tying it all together. And after, when everyone came back to the house, Lena had changed into her own black jeans and shirt and handed the yellow dress to Nic along with the items she had to return. I don’t want to see it ever again, she’d said.

If Lena had kept going in the spare room there would have been other things she didn’t want to see, again or for the first time. She chose not to. Closed the door. Hoped it might stay closed forever.

‘Is that right, Lena?’ Ada asked. ‘This room isn’t in regular use?’

‘No. I mean, yes, that’s right, it isn’t.’