As they walked into the kitchen, Ria saw Tania. The girl looked awful; she was being held by her nana, and Theresa looked old, so old. It was as if the night’s events had finally forced age to creep up on her. Theresa was not as strong as she liked to think she was and this was a blow the older woman would never recover from.

It was one that none of them would ever recover from.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty

Tania wondered if even the weather was coming out in sympathy with her; it was dark and cold and the rain was lashing the windscreen, the sound loud in the confines of the car. The world outside looked grey, scruffy, dilapidated, and that was exactly how she felt.

She was sitting beside her father as they drove through East London. They had been to see the undertakers to organise the funeral. Her mother was to have a glass carriage pulled by four black-plumed horses and her coffin was to be lead-lined – the best that was available.

Her father had just talked his way through the arrangements, not listening to the undertaker or able to comprehend what was being asked. He had simply chosen the most expensive things offered, and he had looked so beaten, so old as he did, that she was heart-sorry for him. In truth, her mother would not have wanted this; Lena had never been comfortable with pomp and ceremony, but her father felt he was doing his wife proud, and so Tania kept her own counsel. He was feeling it more than any of them – herself included. Her father, whatever his faults – and they were legion – had loved her mother with a passion. No one could ever dispute that he had adored her, and they had been together for so long.

Tania still felt strange; it had not really hit her yet, not properly. She still expected her mum to come into her bedroom with a cup of tea in the morning and tell her it was time to get up, or walk into the kitchen and see her ironing while the dinner cooked and Radio 2 was blaring. But those things would never happen again; she knew she had to accept that. Nothing would ever be the same again for any of them. Her brothers were creeping around their father, as wary as she was about how he was going to react once he came out of his stupor.