She slept in a single bed. She’d had a double for a while, thinking the space would be a luxury, but it wasn’t. Even though she’d been sleeping on her own for years – the last six years of her forties – she always kept to one side, noticing the cold of the unused portion of bed when she dipped a toe across. The habit was frustrating. She didn’t feel like she was occupying half a house, living half a life, so why this ritual with her side of the bed? Then a few months ago she’d arranged for a single to be delivered, and the old double removed. With the extra space, she’d brought plants into the room: an avocado plant that sprouted long thin leaves, chilli plants of varying oranges, red, purples – like the colours of her hair – and a peace lily. They were standing on small, circular tables of different heights and woods that she got second-hand, from charity shops or street markets. She liked the splashes of green, the terracotta and black pots. She liked the idea of some new life occupying the room.

She sat up, swivelled around to face the door. Soft slippers, placed the night before, were waiting for her feet. Time to get to work.

Four years ago Eva had inherited her house from her mother. She’d never really intended to live there long term, but in the years since her mum’s death she hadn’t quite been able to move out. The house connected her to a past that was out of reach – perhaps it always had been. She’d moved in a couple of years before her mum died, at a time when she’d had nowhere else to go and she’d been grateful, for the company as much as the roof over her head. But the house was more than that, and had been passed down in their family for generations – she didn’t even know who had first lived there, whether it was the grandparents she’d never known, or generations before that.

She’d driven her mum mad, when she was little, wanting to know who everyone was, where they were. Of course she wanted to know. She wanted them to be her family. But her mum never gave a straight answer to anything. ‘Tell me about Grandma Goldsmith,’ she’d plead. ‘Tell me about Grandpa and Great-Grandpa, tell me about Great-Great-Great …’ Her mum would lift her up and spin her around, but she didn’t tell her what she wanted to know. ‘Can we visit Grandma and Grandpa Goldsmith?’ she’d ask every holiday, eyes wide until, once, her mum looked at her and said, ‘My dad died when I was young.’

Eva hadn’t known what to say. She’d shuffled closer to her mother, put her head on her shoulder. ‘But what about Grandma?’