I pushed open the spare-room door slightly too forcefully causing it to bang into the wall and Alfie jumped like a coiled spring. Inside, the room smirked back at me too innocently: a naughty child behaving for its teacher. I stared at the rocking chair, half expecting to see it move as if it had just been vacated, but it remained resolutely still. Alfie crouched pounce-ready at the door, his ears flat and tail swishing like a carpet sweeper. I filled my lungs and exhaled slowly. The air, even colder in here than on the landing, still bore an echo of the rose-fragranced Shake n’ Vac I’d used on the carpet.

God, I had to get a grip. It was just a room, and I was pleased with what I’d done. After poring over design magazines, frying my brain with too many options, I’d decided to keep the original bedstead, wardrobe and desk – the ones that had been here when we’d bought the house. There was nothing wrong with them, and they fitted the room perfectly.

The new bedding was a lavender that I knew Grace would like, and the rocking chair was dove-grey. I’d wiped down the wallpaper and the furniture, had the faded curtains dry-cleaned and, with the window thrown open so fresh air could lick every surface of the room, I’d vacuumed every crevice vigorously, sucking up dead spiders and flies and the super-sized ladybirds of that scorching summer, now crispy in death, along with a decade or more of dust, trying not to think about the people whose skin flakes were disappearing into the vacuum cleaner. With rubber gloves up to my elbows and a hankie tied over my nose and mouth, I’d cleaned out the fireplace and replaced the ashes with a bunch of dried flowers in a jug. In the wardrobe, I’d hung one of my winter coats in case Grace didn’t own one after her years in Australia. But was that too much? Did I look too keen?

‘What do you think, Alfie?’ I asked, but he was no longer there. I pulled the coat out of the wardrobe and threw it onto the bed. Wasn’t one of the problems before that I was too keen? Too accommodating?