I help Grandma out of the chair and we walk towards them. Grandma’s arm is trembling in mine, and when I look at her face there are tears streaming down her cheeks. She lets go of me and holds out both arms to her brother and he is wet-eyed too. His son is holding him up, and I am on the other side, and it isn’t until they’ve parted that we greet one another. Fred is wiping his eyes.

‘I’m getting silly in my doddery old age,’ he says. ‘Look at you, dear girl, you must be Hannah.’

He kisses my cheek with his spiky whiskers, and then ruddy-faced Jack kisses me too, both men looking embarrassed and out of place in the shiny, sharp lobby of the hotel in their buttoned-up short-sleeved shirts and shorts with socks and orthopaedic shoes.

We walk to a nearby pub for lunch in the touristy part of the city—what’s called The Rocks. They explain the difference between a schooner and a middy of beer, and Grandma orders a shandy.

‘What’s that?’

‘Half beer, half lemonade,’ Fred replies. ‘The ladies fancy it.’

‘Not the lemonade you’re thinking,’ Grandma says, patting my arm. ‘Lemonade here means Sprite or 7 Up.’

‘Thank God I’ve got you here to translate for me.’

‘What’ll it be, then—shandies for both the ladies?’

‘I’ll have a glass of wine. House white. Let me pay.’

‘Not on your life. If I can’t buy my niece a drink the first time I meet her this is a sad world,’ Fred says, as his son counts out the brightly coloured bills and lays them on the bar.

‘Grand-niece, and we’ll shout the next round,’ Grandma says, and her brother grins at her.

There is a menu on the wall in the corner of the pub and a counter where we order food. There are pies, and fish and chips, and all the deep-fried things you could imagine, and I feel my stomach clench into that familiar panic of how to manage. I take a deep breath and look up at Grandma, who is laughing at something Fred has said, gripping his arm.

‘Let’s find ’em a seat,’ Jack whispers. ‘Then we can sort the food.’