Aunt Mary, her husband Sam, and Aunt Phyllis all lived together. Phyllis had never married. ‘Phyllis was too much of a lady to get married,’ said Aunt Mary, meaningfully. It was as though the goatish attentions of a man, all beard and raw lust, might have catapulted Phyllis on to a precipice of mental distress from which she would never claw her way back.

When Sam and Mary went on holiday, Phyllis came along with them. ‘Three’s company, four’s a crowd,’ Aunt Mary would carol gamely, although sometimes – when Phyllis was off peeling potatoes, drooping over the sink in her long brown cardigan – Mary would whisper: ‘Of course, sometimes Sam and I would like a wee fortnight on our own. But it wouldn’t really be fair on Phyllis, to leave her behind in charge of the house, away from all the fun.’

Mary’s whispers had a tendency to carry. Now and again I wondered if Phyllis could hear.

Sam enjoyed his bowls and his television. He was retired from his job as a bank clerk. We saw him about once a year, when we visited them in Carrickfergus, and then he would say: ‘Long time no see, Jackies Senior and Junior,’ and excavate himself from his armchair to fetch Big Jacky a whiskey.

He was a tame man, really. Any rebellious sinews in him had long ago been replaced with a convenient machine-washable stuffing. Mary had him kitted out in pale lambswool pullovers, like Rupert Bear. His clothing was organised to match the house, an overheated cave of squashy velveteen sofas, pastel Chinese rugs, and polished tabletops sprinkled with lace doilies. You could sink back into those soft furnishings and not be seen again for a week. It was a miracle Sam was still alive. One day scientists would discover him dead there, the suburban equivalent of the leathery men they found preserved for centuries in those Danish peat bogs. He would have his eyes still wide open and his hand stiffened around the remote control. They’d dub him the Bungalow Man, and scientists would marvel at the contents of his stomach (a diet of oven chips and chicken nuggets, specifically designed by Mary to generate no kitchen mess).

China figurines of dancers sprang from the sideboards, suspended in eternal pirouettes. Brass lamps gleamed from shining coffee tables. The furnishings of the house demanded a vigorous cleaning regime. They got it with blasts of spray and polish, worked in deep with triple applications of elbow grease.