She needed coffee before she did anything. Her old fluffy dressing gown from her boarding school days hung on the back of the door. Covered in teddy bears, it was the height of revolting taste, but it still did the job of covering the essentials. There was some comfort in wearing something that dated from before she had ruined everything.

The flowers she’d put on the hallway table yesterday felt right. Later she would gather more from the kitchen garden, but first she wanted to check on her grandparents. Boskenna’s idiosyncrasies soothed her as they had always done. She loved the way the house was odd in its layout, the eccentricities of the additions over the years. It had begun life much more fortified, by all accounts. This was apparent if you looked closely. Some of the original stonework from the Tudor building was visible around the courtyard. Those stones formed the foundations of the house that stood here today. Gran had pointed them out to her years ago, along with all the other joins in the house. There were so many. She paused, overwhelmed. Boskenna without Gran. She was the very mortar that held it all together.

Taking a steadying breath, she climbed the steps up to her grandparents’ bedroom. Those steps were another of the many visible joins. She stopped at the door, ready to knock. Gramps sat by the windows – not looking at the view but at her grandmother propped up in bed. She was speaking but her eyes were closed.

‘Gramps?’ Lottie came in and went to the bed. ‘She isn’t speaking English. It sounds like Russian.’

‘Take no notice.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s delirious.’ He put his cup and saucer down on the dressing table in front of the middle window. There were two cups and saucers, one unused. She looked away. What would he do when she was gone?

Lottie sat next to Gran and stroked her forehead until she settled, and her breathing was no longer as distressed. ‘I’ll sit with her a while.’ She gave him an encouraging smile. ‘Why don’t you take a bath or maybe a walk?’

She looked past Gramps to the view. The rising sun had washed the colour out of the sea and the sky, but there was not a cloud to be seen.

‘Are you sure you’ll be fine?’ He pushed himself out of the chair. It took so much effort.

‘Absolutely.’ She smiled.

‘A bit of cool morning air might do me some good.’

She nodded and turned back to Gran, listening to the thump of Gramps’ cane on each stair then along the corridor.

‘It’s a glorious day, Gran.’ Lottie walked over to the teapot and poured a cup. ‘I might even be tempted to take a swim.’ She smiled. ‘Do you remember how I used to join you every morning for one?’ So many days, rain or shine, she would follow Gran down the path to the beach. Frequently it was very early, before the families with buckets and spades arrived. Normally it would just be old Jacob with his fishing rod sitting on the far rocks. He’d wave to them as they dropped their towels and Lottie would race into the water trying to match Gran’s stride. Oh how she’d wanted to be like Gran with her bathing cap and sleek black swimsuit. Instead she’d sported a spotted bikini with her hair in a plait.