I did – I could just picture Meena sitting at the table like the Queen, looking at her watch and stating that she would wait for her daughter-in-law. She loved to play the martyr.

‘You could be here in twenty minutes,’ Mili said hopefully. ‘There’s not much traffic.’

‘Oh, but… God, it’s just that I have a friend here,’ I said. ‘We’re all set up to stay home tonight.’

‘Bring your friend,’ said Mili. ‘Just get here.’

I put my hand over the phone. ‘Do you want to come to dinner with my in-laws?’ I asked Grace. ‘They’re really nice.’

Grace snorted a laugh and put her hands up, palms facing me. ‘Computer says no. You’re on your own.’

I took a deep breath and returned to the call. ‘Mils, I’m so sorry but we’ve eaten and I’m in my pyjamas. I’m absolutely shattered. It really took it out of me today. It was quite emotional… this new portrait series? I lost track of time and everything and now I’m out of battery and I just need to go to bed. Would you mind explaining that to your mum? Please?’

Mili didn’t reply.

‘Mili? Are you there?’

‘Looks, Abs, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you all right?’ she said. ‘We spoke about this at dinner just before Rohan left. You said it was in your diary.’

‘It is! I just didn’t look at my diary. That’s all.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes! I’m sorry. It just slipped my mind what with Grace arriving and Rohan leaving, and the painting and everything…’

I left the sentence hanging but Mili didn’t reply and I worried that I’d slurred. I did suddenly feel a little fuzzy-headed. Could Mili hear the vodka in my voice? Was she wondering if I was drunk? I’d had a couple of vodkas in the afternoon as well as the two I’d now had with Grace. And they’d probably been doubles. If not triples. Grace poured a generous measure. Mentally I totted up the units; I had high tolerance but it was quite possible that I sounded a bit tipsy.

But whatever Mili was thinking, she kept it to herself. She sighed down the phone. ‘So you’re not coming? I’ve got to go in and tell her that?’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘You know you’re never going to hear the end of this, don’t you?’

‘Yep.’

‘And you’re fine with that? It’s going to be family history: “the time that Abigail forgot”.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it. But thanks, Mils. Really. And, sorry.’

Thirty-One

As Grace’s first weekend with me approached, I asked her if there was anything in particular she wanted to do. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as she thought about it, then snapped them open as a smile crept over her face.