‘But I don’t agree,’ said Ivy. She looked bright and combative, sitting up against her pillows.

Here we go, I thought. I said, ‘There’s this YouTube clip that I think you should see. Believe me, I only care about your comfort and dignity.’

‘Yet you treat me like a child. Dietary fibre! Even the words sound like sawdust. I’ll eat what I want to eat. I’d have thought that you of all people would understand.’

My confusion must have been apparent. ‘Have you really forgotten?’ said Ivy. ‘When you were small, you wanted cold mashed potatoes for dinner every night for a whole year. The mash had to be cold – you insisted on it.’

I remembered nothing of the kind, but cold mashed potato had launched Ivy on a wave of reminiscence. ‘Do you remember Solveig, the Norwegian friend I had at the time?’ she went on. ‘The one with a no-nonsense nose and golden hair? She looked like a Roman emperor with plaits. She was a photographer. For weeks and weeks, she came to our house every day to tell me that I should go away with her and lead a different life. We talked about it for hours – it was great fun, like writing a play together. We were to live simply in a different country in a house by a mountain lake. While we looked for the right house, we were to camp or live on a houseboat. Solveig was going to take photos and paint, and I’d knit jumpers that she was confident could be sold for large sums to people in Oslo. We’d also grow sunflowers to sell locally, and herbs. If I closed my eyes I could see the sunflowers, hanging upside down in a thatched shelter to dry.’

I tried to get a word in, but Ivy swept on. ‘Solveig drove an old jeep, and we were to take no more than we could fit into it when we left. We made lists with a felt-tipped pen on a notepad, arguing back and forth about board games and tinned fish. I could bring you along or leave you behind – it was a matter of indifference to Solveig. She said, “If he comes, there will definitely be no room for chequers.” I wondered what it would mean for your schooling, but Solveig said that you’d receive a far richer education at a village school than you could ever hope to have in the city. I was also worried about the journey there, which would involve passports, a ferry and treacherous roads. That was when Solveig realised that I couldn’t drive. I explained that while I was growing up, no one I knew could afford a car. “And now that I have one,” I told her, “I enjoy being driven about.” Solveig said that I’d just summed up everything that was wrong with my life. She spoke of a “gilded cage” – the way she talked was much less interesting than the way she thought. She was thirteen years younger than me, and there was a lot that was mysterious to her. I tried to describe the time after your father died, when I was alone with a small child. Solveig had never been afraid, so she couldn’t understand safety. At thirty-six I considered myself very old because I was married and had you.