I thought about Alice and shivered violently.

I let go of Jack’s arm and walked towards her, but Gran was quicker. She placed Fleur’s arm firmly in hers, her old hand covering Mum’s. I saw Fleur glance at her in surprise, then she saw me and held out her other hand and I went to her and took it and I wished with all my heart Fergus was still here to stand with her instead of me.

We stood close together, three generations of women, as the little procession topped the rise and came towards the summer house. Gently they laid the coffin down in the grass in front of the house and the priest began to pray, and as he did so the first rays of the new day began behind the trees, filtering light to us in long shafts between the branches.

Fleur and I had chosen Saffie’s favourite hymn and prayer. ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and the prayer ‘Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild’. Gran had taught us this prayer long, long ago, one Singapore Christmas, in a different life we once shared. Ah Heng made sure we said it every night before we slept.

Sam’s boys chose a piece from Kahlil Gibran and read without self-consciousness or embarrassment. Our Maori friends sang for us, the whanau pani, the bereaved. They had not left Saffie’s tupapaku alone once in all the days I had been in hospital.

I read a small piece from Fleur’s Hundertwasser book. I wanted everyone to understand what this place was, what this funeral meant. Not a shrine, but a part of us all.

‘Everything is alive constantly, only transformed into other forms…A person should be buried only half a metre below the surface. Then a tree should be planted there. He should be buried in a coffin that decays so that when you plant a tree on top, the tree will take something out of his substance. When you visit the grave you don’t visit a dead man, you visit a living being who is transformed into a tree. You can develop a beautiful forest which will be more beautiful than a normal forest because the trees have their roots in the graves. A fantastic place where you can live in constant contact with life and death…’

My memory house. Containing Saffie and our private world of childhood. A place where we shared a secret language and the same face and our hearts beat in unison. Where we jumped from high boards into blue pools and raced each other to the side before we sank. Where the worst thing in the world was to be separated.

One day this small house will return to the earth as if it has never been; but out of the windows trees will have sprung.

When the moment came, Jack stood close beside me. We took Saffie inside the summer house and laid her in the place we had made for her in the ground, and the autumn sun began to warm the land as we knelt beside her. Fleur laid sweet peas on the thin coffin and I placed one gold Chinese shoe from the small box I held.