‘I forgot. Never mind, I know you don’t sleep well.’ Well, that’s true, but there’s no need to hold it against me … or disturb my sleepless hours. She always was a disturber. She would dance in front of the television if I was watching it, knowing I hate to miss anything. Sometimes it was ballet, sometimes a jazzy freestyle; sometimes it was just hopping, and always with a mischievous look on her face as I screeched and pelted KitKat wrappers at her. I’m one of those people who rewinds snatches of dialogue they’ve misheard, who has to look again at something in a drama they think might be a clue. And I hated having Worzel Gummidge danced in front of.

‘How are you? How’s Dad?’

‘He’s fine. Still blind, you know …’

‘There’s no need to be like that!’

We have this same exchange every time she calls. Neither of us can help ourselves.

‘How are you?’ I ask flatly. I know how she is. She’s happy. She’s the only one out of the three of us who has managed it.

‘Great, thanks. I need to ask you a favour,’ she says chirpily. ‘Not now, of course, when you get up.’

‘What is it?’

She was always one for favours, our Angela. Or Angela Pangela, as I sometimes called her. She had a way of asking them, when we were kids, that made it seem like she’d give you the earth in return; for lending her your best cardigan – the one with the robin on it – or bringing her a glass of orange squash (‘Strong, with two straws, please’) as she lolled on her bed in her candy-pink bedroom with a book about ponies, or for fibbing to Dad on her behalf about where she was last night (telling him she was round at Paula Dawson’s doing homework and not out with Mark Sinclair, the baddest boy at school, doing an underage pub crawl round Camden). She never gave the earth. She’d just say ‘thanks’ in a breezy voice and move on to her next thing.

‘Been up to anything recently?’

‘It’s two o’clock in the morning, Angela! What’s the favour?’

‘So? You don’t have to get up in the morning. Or do you have a job again now?’

I sigh. ‘No, I don’t have a job.’

‘Thought not.’ Ah, the eternal air of superiority. She’s pretty, she’s got a career, she’s married.