Grandad appears in the front room and hands me a cup of scummy tea. ‘Your mum’s been caught out a couple of times.’ He nods at the tea. ‘I put three sugars in there to keep your energy levels high.’

I look up and see Elsa standing by the TV, bumping her face into the screen and leaving snotty marks everywhere. ‘What’s she doing?’ I ask.

‘Kissing Makka Pakka. He’s her favourite.’ Grandad goes back into the kitchen, leaving Elsa smacking the TV (I don’t think she likes Iggle Piggle) and me trying not to fall asleep. It’s hard. Grandad’s homebrew is bubbling away in the corner of the room and along with the piano music coming from the TV, it’s making a very soothing sound.

Soon, Grandad calls us in to dinner and while we eat our macaroni cheese, we talk about Mum.

‘Alice went to Myanmar just after she had you,’ Grandad says. ‘She was looking after elephants … No, hang on, I think it was Thailand.’

‘She never told me she went away when I was a baby.’ I thought Mum told me everything: the graphic details of Elsa’s birth (she tried to get me to watch; I refused), about her adventures volunteering abroad, tales from her wild teenage years … She’d even told me about meeting my dad in Vietnam – ‘the most beautiful man she’d ever seen’ – and then moving on to Australia before she realised she was pregnant.

‘Well, she was only gone a couple of weeks,’ says Grandad. ‘She had the baby blues and needed to get away.’

‘Plus she does love elephants,’ I say, thinking about the troop of rainbow elephants that Mum’s painted all through the hallway of our flat.

Grandad nods. ‘You’re right. Elephants, animals, people … It doesn’t really matter who it is, Alice is a carer.’

Suddenly, I don’t feel like eating any more of my macaroni cheese. The sauce is lumpy and Grandad didn’t cook the pasta for long enough. ‘I think I should get Elsa home.’

‘Sure you don’t want to stay here tonight?’

I glance at the cage on the kitchen worktop. A chicken is sitting inside watching me with her beady eyes. If an avian flu pandemic ever broke out, this is exactly where it would start. ‘We’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘I’ve just got to be organised. Stay on top of things.’

‘You’re welcome here any time.’

‘Grandad, honestly, I’ve made up my mind!’

Something about the way I say this makes him laugh and raise up his hands in mock surrender. I’ve seen him do this loads of times before with Mum when she’s arguing a point with him. ‘I suppose it’ll be a bit of an adventure staying on your own,’ he says. ‘You can think of it as a mission!’

I laugh. ‘I think I’m a bit old to play “missions” now.’

‘Nonsense. Let’s talk logistics. Have you got a pen?’

I pull one out of my blazer pocket. I’ve always got a pen.