If she was being really honest with herself, she had allowed the place to get into a bit of a state. It was difficult, being on her own. Some days she just couldn’t muster the energy to clear up as she went along, which was perfectly understandable at her age. But then the next day there was more to be cleared up and consequently more energy that required mustering, and that was how things had got a little out of hand. Every so often she would set to with a bin bag, but it very quickly became apparent that it was going to take a lot more than a bin bag, and so she gave up.

Nicholas tried sometimes, too. He had arrived with cardboard packing boxes just last week.

‘Please let me clear some of this stuff, Auntie Evelyn,’ he had said, brandishing the box like a weapon. She could hear him moving around on the landing outside her room.

‘What are you doing out there?’ she shouted. ‘Those are my things. Stop touching everything. You’ll mess it all up. I’ll never find anything.’

He had stuck his head round her door at that point, a wry smile on his lips.

‘You may well mock,’ she’d said, ‘but I know exactly where everything is, and I’ll thank you not to go muddling it all up.’

A few minutes later he had appeared in her room, his hands raised in surrender. ‘Okay, okay. I give up. I don’t have time to sort it all out anyway. It would take me all year. But honestly, Auntie Evelyn, please let’s get someone in. It can’t be good for you, having so much clutter around the place.’

Evelyn had given him one of her hardest stares, the kind reserved for when people were particularly irritating. She had copied the look from Joan back when she was still in the business of collecting facial expressions, fully expecting to have to use them in front of a camera in the future. Somehow, her impression of her sister’s stare had never been quite as withering as the original, but it seemed to work quite well on Nicholas, who shrank a little under its blast.

‘I’ll thank you not to go interfering with my life,’ she snapped. ‘How I choose to live is my own business and nothing to do with you.’