A little chaos on the global markets meant that Chanel was still stuck at the Corporation when Bram arrived that evening. Ivy likes to receive him in the lounge – it adds to the pretence of a social occasion. For the first time, I followed Bram into the room. Ivy raised no objection. She was sitting with her spine an inch from the back of the modular couch – her posture is another thing she owes to the nuns – and she had on her best outfit: the emerald half-hoop, and a stiff, shimmering dress, in a vicious shade of pink, that reached to her Homypeds. Ivy’s mind is clear, but the heroine who stars there is twenty-six. The last time she’d worn the pink dress was to Mel’s graduation. When I helped her off with her coat I saw people wondering why this old woman was dressed for the opera at ten in the morning.

You can rely on Bram like a Toyota. He complimented Ivy’s dress and her matching nails. He held her hand and talked to her about what the test had revealed. In a straightforward way, he informed her that a colonoscopy was the next step.

‘Why?’

‘To determine whether cancer is present. A biopsy is taken and —’

Ivy said, ‘I don’t want to know.’

‘I need to know to determine your treatment. Bowel cancer presents variably but it’s eminently treatable if picked up early.’

‘What kind of treatment?’

‘That depends on what the colonoscopy shows. A tumour would be surgically removed, and there’d be follow-up —’

‘I’m never consenting to being cut up again.’

On and on it went, back and forth between them. Bram was wearing one of Ivy’s knits, an astroturf-green collared cardigan with leather buttons. I believe he keeps it in his car and only puts it on when he comes here. I have the same cardigan in electric red. I wear it for doing odd jobs around the house. In between, it hangs in the garage, where moths congregate in spring.

Ivy was holding a white handkerchief embroidered with white flowers. As Bram talked to her, she touched it to the corner of her mouth. It hit me as nothing else had done: I was going to lose Ivy. Overcome by emotion, I cut across whatever Bram was saying. ‘We’re all here for you as a family,’ I told Ivy. ‘That includes Bram. All of us only want what’s best for you.’

‘Advice best not taken,’ said Ivy, ignoring me and addressing Bram. ‘That’s what the seven of spades told me today.’

In the end, Bram said that he’d call by again in a week. If Ivy remained certain that she didn’t want a colonoscopy, there was another option. ‘A barium meal test is painless and non-invasive. All you have to do is swallow a liquid like a flavoured milkshake and be X-rayed afterwards. It won’t tell us as much as a colonoscopy but —’