Minnie reached out to touch her mother’s hand, but her mother didn’t see, and moved hers from the table before she could reach it. Minnie picked up a button instead. There was a collection of broken objects in front of her, waiting to be mended: a saucepan without a handle, a small button with ‘hot’ written on it, and the decapitated head of a ceramic dog.

‘You don’t need to go to any trouble, Mum. I’m honestly happy with beans on toast. I’ve just come to see you both.’

‘Well, that’s what you’ll be getting at this rate. Now, would you help me find this dog’s body, Minnie? It must be in that lounge somewhere.’

Her mother waved a hand towards the front room and Minnie did as she was asked. In the lounge the tick-tock of the clocks was marginally quieter. Her dad had designed it that way so as not to disrupt his programmes.

Of all the clocks in the house, there was only one that Minnie was genuinely fond of. It hung in pride of place above the TV – Coggie. She’d bought it for Dad from a car-boot sale up at Pick’s Cottage when she was sixteen. When she found it, it didn’t work; the bell on top had rusted and the seven and the four on the face had been scratched away. It had clearly been uncared for and unloved for many years, yet there remained some understated regal quality in that clock’s face, as if – even though it couldn’t tell you the time – it might tell you something else important, if only it could speak.

Minnie liked the hole in the face that let you watch the cogs whirring behind. The bell on the top was struck by a small pin every hour, and in amongst the clamour of clocks, it was the one bell she didn’t mind the sound of. Such a gentle proclamation of another hour gone, not a grandiose gong like some of the more entitled clocks.

Minnie bent down on her hands and knees and reached beneath the sofa searching for the lost piece of dog her mother was looking for. She heard her father’s footsteps heavy on the stairs.

‘Let’s have no more talk about beans on toast – we’ll just get a takeaway, shall we, love?’ Minnie’s dad bellowed in the direction of the kitchen, then he stomped into the lounge. Minnie saw his big workman’s boots stop next to her head. ‘What you doing down there?’

‘Looking for half a dog,’ she said.

He frowned. ‘Don’t be putting her to work, Connie. Get the girl a drink and let’s get a Chinese in, hey?’

He sat down in his worn brown cord armchair. The chair made a slow wheezing sound as though it had been winded. He reached for the remote control on the side table.