She uses my name as punctuation, a full stop that ends this. I shut the door behind me and listen out for the neat click. Polishing the metal mechanisms around the house was my chore when I was little. My mother imagined it was a chore that would appeal to a child, so she assigned it to me at the age of five, as soon as I could be trusted not to pour the furniture polish into my mouth. When I left home the task reverted to her and even now all her doorknobs are shiny. Some people are capable of resuming full proficiency once they are left to fend for themselves. I hope that runs in the family too.

‘So Ruth,’ she says, as we slip past the American film-star portraits lining the walls of the hallway. I swing my hip to the side to avoid the long low table. She keeps twin Art Deco lamps at each end, a doily in between and a crystal dish of ancient sweets on the doily. Though narrow, the table is too large for this small corridor and the lamps rack up a substantial bill considering her modest, bread-and-butter lifestyle. But their light is the glow you see through the half-moon window above the front door. It says, If you lived here you’d be home now.

In the kitchen we busy ourselves with dinner. We do this urgently because the chicken is already getting cold. We don’t speak until the task is completed. We are removing the tinfoil, balling it up, binning it. We are sliding the chicken, whole, on to a serving plate. Pouring the coleslaw into two small shallow fish-shaped bowls, the ones we use for coleslaw, never fish. Putting the napkins out: squares of kitchen roll that we fold into triangles. What is the point of buying both kitchen roll and napkins? What is the point of buying both cotton wool pads and cotton wool balls? My mother and I are thrifty: we save money, time and space. We work as a team: no dishes, one carving knife. We sit before one another in opposite fold-out chairs. Two others remain against the wall, where they have left a grey smudge, dust accumulating between plaster and plastic until it turns into grease. Don’t get me wrong: the house is well tended, in its well-used spaces. There is always so much to do, no need to go rooting around in dark corners. The kitchen surfaces are always pristine.

‘Ruth,’ my mother says.