‘In what way? I will lose all my freedom and have to spend every hour working to pay the rent or the mortgage.’

‘Mortgage. We can do this.’

There had been movements with Mum’s house. Since the price had dropped more people had come to see it and one couple seemed keen. ‘They liked Mum’s sense of style,’ Amy told me. ‘Emily’s been helpful. She kept the place tidy and let people in.’

‘Emily’s great,’ I said.

‘Are you…?’

‘What?’

‘You have a look in your eye.’

‘Emily is lovely. Emily is getting married to a man who owns a flat worth close to two million pounds.’

‘How do you know how much it costs?’

‘I’ve looked it up.’

‘I thought you hated property websites.’

‘I despise them.’

‘Yeah, well. You can soon have your own two-bedroom bachelor pad to woo her with, if you pay attention to them for a little bit.’

‘It’s not exactly going to be a babe magnet. This place you’re on about is in the middle of nowhere.’

‘It has great transport links.’

‘It does not.’

‘You can be in the centre in half an hour.’

‘Thirty-four minutes. One distant corner of the centre. After a quarter of an hour’s walk to the train station. It would take forever to get here.’

‘What’s so good about here?’

‘Oh, nothing, I suppose. It’s just home, that’s all.’

‘You need to stop being so sentimental. You need to be realistic.’

‘I know.’

‘How was your trip home?’ she asked, in a softer tone.

‘Chaos. It won’t even be home after we’ve sold the place, you realise? The house or the town. We’ll lose them both at the same time.’

She slapped her hand on the table. Of course she had realised. She’d been trying to get me to realise that ever since Mum died. ‘We need to make our own homes now. This’ – she looked around her, at the torn lino, the chipped paint and yellowing walls – ‘is not it.’

My phone began to ring before I could disagree. Sophie. She was walking past. She was going to pop in.

‘Sophie’s going to nip over,’ I said.

‘Sophie? You’re still knocking around with her, that one who wrote the column about you?’

‘About slumming it with a decrepit hipster, yeah.’

‘She’s not home, either.’

‘No, she’s round the corner.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Give her a chance. I like her. What about you? Your man in Bristol? The yoga guy.’

‘Acupuncturist.’

‘That’s what I meant. What are you going to do about him?’

‘They’re not nearly the same thing. But that’s my news. I’ve told him. Ben, his name is. I’ve told Ben.’

‘Wow. What did Ben say?’

‘He said, like I suppose was reasonable, “Are you sure it’s mine?” though I flew off the handle a bit at the time.’