‘I remember her talking about it. She’d always wanted to go to Australia, and it was something she and Dad discussed often, especially after they’d retired, because he was more interested in New Zealand and they always said that they’d just combine the two into one massive trip. But it wasn’t something they ever booked – certainly not in the weeks after she got the news about the cancer. I’d bet my house on the fact that what she told the nurse that day was just the same things she’d talked to me about, over and over again – her dream trip, the places in Australia she wanted to go, all that sort of thing …’ Rina glanced to the side of the camera, as the baby monitor sprang into life. When her eyes came back, they were pained. ‘When she said she was going to delay the chemo, I remember thinking, “Just get it done, Mum. A stupid bloody holiday can wait for a few months, this is your life.” But then I realized she was scared. She was just really scared. The treatment was brutal the first time – and so a holiday sounds a hell of a lot better than the reality of having more poison pumped into your body.’

I gave her a moment and then said, ‘What did they do before they retired?’

‘Dad was a teacher and Mum worked for the council. She and I were born up in Leeds, but Dad was a southern softie.’ She smiled; paused for a second. ‘He was born in Dover and grew up somewhere near Margate, but he did his degree in York. He always joked that he couldn’t wait to get as far away from home as possible; I didn’t know my paternal grandparents because they died before I was born, but from what Dad used to say, my grandfather was a bit of a shit – you know, a drinker, a womanizer, not scared of using a fist or a boot. Anyway, after his degree, Dad worked as a teacher, then he wrote this super-hardcore academic paper on the Second World War which, in university circles, got a lot of people in fawn blazers hot under the collar. “Ideology, Exploitation and Extermination: Realism versus Idealism at the Nuremberg Trials”. Give it a go. It’s an excellent sleeping pill.’

I smiled. ‘And your mum?’