She doesn’t recognise me, Diana thought to herself.

‘Dana.’

There was no pleasure in her voice; there was nothing. Except maybe vague wonder at rediscovering a name long forgotten.

For Diana, the word was a signal. She stepped forward and put her arms around Susso and when she smelled her warm hair, which was pulled back into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, she teared up and was overcome by a sudden vertigo. Because it was really her. An older version of Susso, anaemic and anorexic, but even so, it was her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she squeaked.

Susso stared at her. Her jaw muscles worked underneath her skin. As though she wanted to say something but instead chose to grind it up between her teeth. She wore no earrings, just the pinpricks in her earlobes.

Diana followed her into the kitchen and watched her put the groceries in the fridge. She didn’t know what to say, so she just stood in the doorway in silence. The walls were a shade of apricot and the cupboard doors yellow with brown knobs. A bench and four stools encircled the kitchen table. She sat down on a stool. When she did, Susso looked at her. She tied the carrier bag into a knot and threw it into the cupboard under the sink.

‘Did Mum ask you to come?’

She instinctively shook her head. Then she shrugged.

‘She’s worried. And I am too.’

She regretted it instantly. Saying you were worried about someone was a kind of reproach. A moral reprimand. Which Susso’s feelers instantly picked up on.

‘Why?’ she said.

‘I think about you. A lot.’

Susso was holding the percolator, seemingly pondering whether to accept that explanation. She rinsed out the coffee pot and while she filled it with water, she gazed out the window. At the slow-moving river. A viscous, grey mass. Diana was dead certain she was going to mock her for opening up like that; when no comment seemed forthcoming, she apologised.

‘You know what it’s like. Old age makes you sentimental.’

After a while she continued.

‘But it’ll all be over soon!’

‘Into the ground we go, finally.’

‘Not one day too soon.’

They shared a quiet smile. Once upon a time, that had been the pillar of their worldview. That everything was really shit at heart and it was incomprehensible that people didn’t see it. The percolator started hissing and spitting. Susso had her arms crossed and was looking down at the floor, the rag rug. She had pulled one foot out of its slipper and was lifting it with her toes, up and down. Diana looked at the slipper as well. A red Croc. It was the only thing moving in the kitchen.

‘So how are you?’

She shrugged.

‘I’ve seen ghosts with healthier tans.’