There is only room for single file on the stairs. “Can you manage?” I ask Iris. She nods and starts up the stairs. I follow, trying not to breathe through my nose. There is a pervasive smell of mildew.

It brings to mind the word “abandonment.” Which makes me feel bad.

Feel worse.

So I try not to think about the word “abandonment.” Or about Coco Chanel. Vera’s pit bull.

I try not to think about anything. I continue upstairs, behind Iris in case she falls. I can break her fall. It seems like the least I can do. I look down at my feet. Concentrate on my feet in the brown gladiator sandals. On slotting them carefully onto the next step. And the next. Avoiding the edges of each step where the ancient carpet is fraying and curling away from the wood beneath. It’s probably solid wood. Oak maybe. That would come up lovely with a bit of sanding and re-varnishing.

This makes me think about the solid oak floors in the hallway of my house. The soft glow of them when the evening sun pours in through the mottled glass of the front door.

Which brings me back to the word “abandonment.”

I concentrate on my sandals. My long, narrow toes poking out of the top. Lifting my foot, slotting it onto the next step. And the next. Concentrate on not slipping. Concentrate on not falling.

Vera’s flat is on the top floor.

“The penthouse suite,” she declares, rummaging in her bag for the key.

The door opens into a small living area where there is a white plastic table, two white plastic kitchen chairs, an enormous television perched on footstools, an armchair in front of the enormous television, a dog basket containing a mattress, pillow, blanket, and a teddy bear. The bear is leaking stuffing and has gaping holes where his eyes used to be. Along one wall, a Formica counter, housing a sink, a toaster, and a kettle. Vera walks inside, takes her coat off, and drops it across the back of a kitchen chair. From the table, she removes a bundle of magazines, half a white sliced loaf, a tub of margarine, a jar of Marmite, and a carton of milk.

“How about a nice cup of rosy lee?” Vera unscrews the lid of the milk and rests her nose across the spout, sniffing inside. She winces, replaces the lid, and throws the carton, sour milk still inside, into the bin.

“Or a drink?” she says then, heading for the fridge. “I’ve got cans.” She turns towards us. We must look like a bedraggled band of misfits. Iris, with her torn clothes and her blood-matted hair and mutinous face, standing by the door, gripping the handle. Me cowering beside her, clutching my handbag against my chest and snatching my head this way and that for sightings of Coco Chanel, and Dad heading for a corridor on the far side of the room. I imagine Coco Chanel down there, her enormous mouth revealed behind her curling lip, teeth glinting white in the dark.