I’m not sure which is my most overriding emotion: shame, embarrassment or anger.

‘Sweetheart,’ I hear Stella say gently.

Alex is quiet. Ciara stands and stares at me, waiting for an answer. She’s not letting me get away with it. She wants to break me down just like her father did.

But I won’t let her. I’m not a child any more. I won’t apologise or cower.

‘After the funeral is fine,’ I say, my voice steady.

Ciara glares at me, waiting for more maybe. But she won’t get it. Not about the house, anyway. I slip into organisation mode, trying to remember all the things we did twenty years ago when it was my mother’s turn to be laid out in the front room. Of course I was so young then, my memories are hazy at best.

‘I think maybe we should be closing curtains. Find somewhere to place the candles from the undertaker. Do people still cover all the mirrors?’

Seeing that she’s not getting a rise out of me, Ciara shrugs. ‘I’m not sure. I’ll check.’

She takes her phone from her pocket and starts to search for ‘wake traditions’.

‘It seems a lot of it is up to us,’ she says. ‘But maybe we should go and look in his room,’ she adds. ‘Strip the bed, open the window at least and air it out. See what medications need to be dropped off at the chemist. Then we can close the curtains again. Or the blinds at least. I think we maybe should cover the mirror in the room he’ll be in,’ she says.

I don’t really want to go into that room again, but I’m determined not to show any weakness in front of Ciara.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘That seems a good place to start.’

‘Will you two be okay?’ Stella asks.

She’s keeping her voice light, but I know both she and Alex must be scared we will tear lumps out of each other given the chance. It wouldn’t be the first time, of course. It had become physical on occasion when we were younger. Ciara had been stubborn and I had been angry, and grew angrier every day until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

‘We will,’ Ciara says. ‘We can do this together,’ she says gently to me. Her sudden change in demeanour – the shift from bitchy to supportive – is so fast that I feel wrong-footed.

Ciara crosses the hall and takes my hand in hers. I have to resist the urge to pull away. I have to stay in control and not be manipulated by her rapid mood swing.

I let her lead the way up the stairs, not pulling my hand away. I can play her game.

His room is dark. No one has opened the curtains; the light has been switched off. It smells of stale air with a faint undercurrent of something medical; disinfectant perhaps. I find myself standing for a minute or so just inside the doorway. Ciara has let go of my hand and she walks in and briskly pulls the curtains apart, the stream of light showing the dust motes in full flight.