Mum and I both went through to the bedroom, clutching our cups. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a coffee, Matthew?’ said Mum, her voice full of concern.

‘Nah, you’re fine, thanks,’ Matty said, then to me, ‘You definitely want it here, you don’t want me to measure the alcove?’

The three of us stood in the bedroom, looking around, as if the items of furniture in it were flowers in a vase that could be easily rearranged, as opposed to bulky and unmanageable objects that were mismatched and didn’t really suit the room they were in. I had a brief vision of the whole house that Matty and I could have one day when he was a consultant, when I sold this place and when he sold his flat in Brockley, wherever the hell that was. We would have built-in wardrobes with mirrored doors. Suddenly, the phrase built-in wardrobes had an almost poetic allure.

Matty scratched the back of his head. ‘Course, you could always put the wardrobe in the alcove instead, that might work. I could measure up.’

‘You can’t do that on your own, Matthew!’ my mum cried. ‘You’ll have to wait until George can come back and help.’

He isn’t on his own, I thought. I’m here.

‘What would the lady of the house like?’ Matty asked me. ‘Chest of drawers here or there?’

‘Let’s try there first,’ I said, pointing. ‘Then we’ll see what that looks like.’

‘Okey-doke.’

As Mum and I went back into the kitchen, she said, ‘He can’t keep moving it all on a whim, you know, you can’t mess him around.’

It took Matty a few minutes to push the chest of drawers into the right place and slot the drawers in. As he came into the kitchen, Mum said, ‘Matthew, you are a wonder.’

He winked at me, a conspiratorial wink that my mother couldn’t see, then said, ‘Think I’ll have that coffee now.’

*

Half an hour later, the three of us were in Matty’s car, driving Mum home. She had said she was happy to walk, but Matty wouldn’t hear of it. ‘It’s freezing out there today, you can’t possibly walk!’ Mum was in the front passenger seat and I was in the back, on the left-hand side behind Mum, with my head resting against the side window. Matty and my mum were talking to each other and it was giving me a headache.

‘No, it suits you, seriously, I like it. Makes me wonder what Lisa would be like with short hair.’

Mum petted her own head, checking that the haircut still had bounce. She didn’t get her hair done all that often. ‘Well, I wasn’t too sure. When you get to my age.’

‘You’re no age!’