But something has changed when she gets up and leaves her office. Despite the shock of Nan’s fall, it feels like something invisible has shifted. As if there was a reason this all happened – to grant her permission to go to Low Drove.

When Chloe gets back to Nan’s room she’s still sleeping. Chloe settles down in the chair beside her, sipping her tea as she watches her. She enjoys listening to the steady whistle of her breathing. She thinks of the evenings they’d sat in her living room, watching Corrie together, when it always felt enough just to be beside her. It’s difficult to pinpoint now when she had begun to need something more. It always is.

Nan sleeps on and off for a couple of hours. When she sighs or her eyes flicker open for a second, Chloe reaches for her hand and she goes back to sleep. By six o’clock the scent of dinner creeps under the door. There’s a knock and a care assistant – Sam – appears, offering them both a plate of mince and potato with some watery cabbage. Chloe takes two plates and puts them on the side. Nan stirs and Chloe helps her sit up so she can eat. She straightens her nightie, tying the ribbons across her bony collarbones so she doesn’t feel a draught.

‘Here you are, Nan,’ she says, offering her a small forkful of mince and mash.

She takes tiny mouthfuls.

‘Good, well done.’

Nan smiles every now and then, each portion Chloe persuades her to eat adding more colour to her cheeks.

‘I remember you doing this for me,’ Chloe says.

‘Do you?’ Nan takes another mouthful, swallows it. ‘When was that then?’

‘When I was a little girl.’

Nan watches Chloe over the next fork she puts into her mouth. She eats silently for a few moments.

‘Did you know Stella?’ she says, her blue eyes watery.

Chloe lifts another fork to Nan’s mouth, but she takes her time to swallow, as if the memory of Stella sticks in her throat.

‘Yes,’ Chloe says finally, ‘I knew Stella.’

Nan’s eyes sparkle, but no longer with tears. She’s away somewhere else then, taking forkfuls of mashed potato, but not here, not in this room.

‘Here, try a little cabbage,’ Chloe says.

Nan eats it, smiling to herself.

‘She was a lovely little girl, wasn’t she?’ Nan says after a while.

Chloe nods.

‘A shock of blonde curls, do you remember?’

Chloe thinks of the photograph that she keeps in her pocket, her favourite picture of the two of them.

‘I do,’ she says.

Silently, Nan reaches gently for a tendril of Chloe’s black hair and winds it around her fingers into a question mark, then stares at her granddaughter.

‘Here, Nan, finish this last bit.’