He rolls his eyes and picks two mugs out of the cupboard, puts the kettle on. ‘You’re lucky to be working for Julia and Michel, you know. They’ve been so good to my parents over the years, they’re like family. I don’t want to see them get hurt, or ripped off, or robbed or… whatever the fuck you might do to them.’ He’s almost shouting.

‘Nothing, I’m not going to do anyth—’

‘So you’re going to sit down and tell me exactly what kind of “stuff” you’re going through and then I’ll decide if I have to tell Julia and Michel or not, okay?’

I nod, gesture towards the kettle, say meekly. ‘Teabag in first, please.’

I don’t have any intention of telling him the whole story, but as soon as we’re sat on the sofa with mugs in our hands and I open my mouth to speak, that’s what comes out. Perhaps I know that only the truth is serious enough to compensate for my behaviour. Or maybe it’s simply that now Jorge has presented himself as my sounding board I know, suddenly, I desperately need one. I also know he’s going to regret he ever asked.

So I tell him about the coach accident that killed Mum in Turkey in 2012 – a jolly for a women’s magazine that went horrifically wrong thanks to an unroadworthy coach and its overworked driver. I tell him how she bled out during the half hour it took the ambulance to turn up. I tell him about the shock and bewilderment of grief. And about what happened many months later when Dad and I, emerging from the fug of recovery, went to give blood at a mobile donation unit in London, a small, spontaneous gesture in honour of Mum.

It’s strange now, to think back to that day. I remember it so vividly. The London mizzle that fell so lightly but made everything so soggy. Rounding the corner and seeing the van and knowing, without even having to speak the words, that this was something we both wanted to do. At that time we were both still hurting, but it was a pure, uncomplicated hurt: we simply missed her. United in grief, we were swimming slowly through the recovery process, knowing that life was continuing on its path, as it always does, whether you’re ready for it or not. What comforted me was that although our futures had changed fundamentally with the news of that coach crash, we would always have our shared past: our family, the three of us for thirty-five years, that couldn’t be taken away from us. Or so I thought.

The nurse was round and cheerful and bespectacled. She thanked us for donating. We told her why and saw sympathy in her warm face. She gave us chocolate. And then she asked if we knew our blood types.