I wanted so hard to hope for the best, but the thing was, after all those years sipping warm lemonade in dark pub corners listening to my father pour his heart out on stage then watching him fall headfirst into a bottle of Scotch when we got home, I knew enough to know that it mattered all right. It mattered a lot. And Norman had been wearing his “I’m okay” mask so well for so long now it was impossible to tell if he was even still in there behind it, or somewhere altogether else. As I’d searched his face in the wing mirror for clues, I’d wondered if it might even already be too late to call him back. One two three bite. One two three laugh.

The interior decor of Toad Hall was only slightly better than the outside had hinted at, and when Bill appeared, he, too, was the perfect match. He was about a hundred and twenty years older than his picture and slightly more unsteady on his feet than one might expect at three o’clock in the afternoon, but at least he seemed to know the way to our rooms. One for me and Norman, which smelled distinctly of mold and indistinctly of wee, and one down the hall and up a set of three stairs for Leonard, which was so small even the single bed seemed like an imposition.

There was no sign of Gloria, but Bill assured us she’d be cooking our full English breakfast whenever we wanted between seven and nine o’clock the next morning, which Norman was surprisingly excited about.

“Free breakfast, Mum! Can you believe it?” I was glad he had something to look forward to in the next twenty-four hours, because, frankly, I couldn’t think of much else that was going to fit the bill.

I unpacked, which comprised of taking Norman’s good shirt and my good shirt out of our bags and hanging them in the musty wardrobe. Side by side, they looked remarkably similar, which made me wonder, did I dress like a twelve-year-old boy or did my son dress like a thirty-two-year-old woman? Both options were a little disturbing and I made a mental note to address the issue at some stage.

I was well aware my hanging of good shirts and mental noting were delaying tactics, but I was also well aware there was no way Leonard was going to allow us to deviate from any of the perfectly spaced bullet points on his laminated itinerary.

“Knock, knock.” On cue, he appeared at our slightly open door, not knocking at all but brandishing said itinerary in front of him. It could have been his windblown hair and cheeks, or the fact that he’d removed his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt, but I swear he was looking ten years younger than when we’d left Penzance just a few hours ago.

“Okay, Sadie, it’s four o’clock. Are you feeling brave, my dear?” No, I bloody was not. “Nothing ventured nothing gained—it’s time to call candidate number one.”