Nell stood back for a moment. The rest of the display was taken up with more informal pictures, and the same faces kept reappearing, holding babies; holiday snaps, Christmases, anniversaries. The faces grew older, and, gradually, some faces vanished.

‘When did you last visit?’ Gina asked.

‘Oh, about a year after Dad’s funeral, probably.’ Six, seven years ago.

‘That’s a while.’

‘Yes. Well.’ Nell cleared her throat, moved on to the next easel. ‘We were in Exeter by then, and there was work to worry about.’ She smiled sadly. ‘There’s always work. The last time – it wasn’t the same, without my gran, without my dad. I kept expecting to . . . And then of course, there’s nowhere to stay. It’s not . . . home . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

She had seen them everywhere, that was the trouble, in the pubs, walking along the beach or down the street. Then there had been the well-wishers, people stopping to chat, to ask how she was, curious glances flickering over Chris and little Maude; they were married by the time they made that last visit. Her father was gone, and that was unbearable.

‘After a while, it didn’t seem like we had a reason to come back,’ Nell said, ‘and then – time passed, you know?’

‘I do, pet.’

Nell turned her attention back to the photographs. ‘Is that her?’

‘Carolyn, you mean?’ Gina squinted at the image, ‘it could be, I suppose.’ The picture appeared to have been taken at some sort of party, there were children – teenagers, really, sitting around a table, and behind them, a handful of adults.

‘That’s your gran, there.’ Gina pointed to an older woman, caught in profile, saying something to the woman next to her. ‘And that’s Ida.’

She was wearing a floral blouse tucked into a dark skirt, her grey hair pinned up away from her face, the smiling young woman in Nell’s photograph seemed to have vanished. ‘Maude was asking about her, but I couldn’t – what was she like?’

Gina thought for a moment. ‘She was the sort of person everybody knew. People would go to her, for – help, advice and – things. Even remedies, you know, instead of going to the doctor for a prescription.’ Gina hesitated. ‘I heard a rumour once that when she was young – that girls would go to her if they got into trouble – back when they would have had no choice.’

Nell’s eyes widened, ‘Really?’

Gina nodded. ‘It was a different world,’ she said. ‘Hard.’

‘I sort of remember her from being little, but I don’t really remember her being a particular friend of my gran. Certainly not in later life.’

‘Well, people move on, don’t they? They change jobs, or get married, they outgrow each other. And she could be difficult, if you crossed her. I always thought there was something – inflexible about her.’