‘No …’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘With me shagging the living daylights out of you every second I am home.’

*

My parents rang the doorbell on the dot of 10 a.m. one Sunday, exactly when they had said they would. I was still sorting through piles of my clothes that I had heaped onto the bed to make room: a pile for Oxfam, a pile to keep, another pile that occupied the grey area in between and would probably be shoved into plastic bags and stored on top of the wardrobe until I had the courage to throw them out. Matty was in the sitting room and when the buzzer went, I heard him open the door to the flat and start to run down the stairs. As I came out onto the landing, he was saying, ‘Mr E, come in, come in!’

I looked past Matty down the stairs. My father was carrying two drawers from the chest unit, one under each arm.

Matty ran down the steps to take them from him. ‘Where’s the boss?’ he said.

‘Getting the other drawers out of the boot,’ Dad replied, shaking his head at Matty to indicate that a drawer handover halfway up would be more trouble than it was worth.

‘She shouldn’t be doing that, you should have given us a bell.’ As Matty said this, there was a clattering noise from further down the stairwell and Mum’s head appeared. She was holding the other two drawers, awkwardly.

‘Come on, missus,’ said Matty, leaping down the stairs. ‘You can’t do that. I’ll take those, you go up and help Lisa get the kettle on.’ They began to grapple with the drawers between them, Mum a little flustered by Matty’s chivalry. Chivalry had never been my dad’s forte and she didn’t know quite how to cope.

I descended a couple of steps but Mum had already eased her way past Matty and Dad and was coming up towards me, shooing me back into the flat. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I think the men want us to leave them to it.’

I put the kettle on, as I had been bidden. ‘Dad’s got to go straight off to Uncle Jim’s when we’ve unloaded,’ Mum said, as I made coffee in the red cafetiere they had bought me for Christmas. I actually fancied a cup of tea but I knew it would please them to see me using it. ‘I can stay for a coffee.’

Dad and Uncle Jim played bowls on Sunday mornings. Mum would go home to make the lunch – even though it was just the two of them, they still had a roast most Sundays.

While Mum and I had coffee in the kitchen, Matty reassembled the chest of drawers in the bedroom. ‘Lis’!’ he called through, after a while. ‘You want to come and see this is right?’