Bonnie jumped as the back door into the kitchen opened, her pen skidding across the page and drawing a line through the final few words she had just written.

‘All right there, duck?’

Tracey beamed across at Bonnie as she unwound her pink scarf. It looked as if the wind that was howling its way around the house had left a bright spot of colour on each of her cheeks, but as Tracey ventured further into the room, Bonnie realised that it was, in fact, a double helping of blusher. Tracey always had been a fan of the more-is-more approach to make-up and now, at the very respectable age of seventy, she still looked just as glamorous as she had all those years ago. The majority of the clientele at Sunrise Café had been workmen and engineers who came in for breakfast after their long night shifts, and Tracey used to joke that it was her duty to provide them with a pretty face to enjoy alongside their mugs of tea and bacon butties.

Bonnie held up her palms in a gesture of defeat.

‘I’m getting there,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s going to take longer than I expected. I keep losing track of the story I’m trying to tell.’

Tracey plonked a carrier bag down on the worktop and extracted first some milk, then a punnet of red grapes, which she put down in front of Bonnie.

‘A treat,’ she explained. ‘Go on – they’re good for you.’

Bonnie popped one into her mouth.

‘Thanks. And thanks again for letting me stay. You didn’t have to say yes, you know.’

Tracey gave her a look.

‘I wasn’t about to let you roam the streets now, was I?’ she chided, and Bonnie chuckled.

‘I would have gone to a hotel – I’m not bloody destitute.’

‘Pah.’ Tracey waved a perfectly manicured hand in the air as she put a packet of salmon fillets into the fridge.

‘I was going to get steak, but my teeth aren’t up to that any more,’ she said regretfully. ‘Honestly, love, I’m telling you now, never get old – it’s a trap.’

Bonnie felt her smile falter, and plucked off another grape.

‘I’m scared, Tracey,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m scared that I’ve come all this way, and she won’t agree to see me.’

Tracey abandoned the shopping and pulled out a chair. Bonnie could see the foundation that had settled in the creases around her mouth – lines no doubt left there from that twenty-a-day smoking habit she’d had back in the nineties.

‘Oh, pet.’ Tracey placed a hand over hers. ‘I’m sure she will. I would be willing to bet that she’s every bit as interested in you as you are in her – how could she not be?’

‘She probably hates me.’ Bonnie let out a long sigh. ‘I wouldn’t blame her if she did.’