‘Yes. I’ve told them I won’t eat dinner until they bring the hairdresser back. I am not going into that dining room looking like something the cat dragged in.’

Twenty minutes later he pulls into the driveway at Wychall’s Nursing Home, shuts off the engine and does his best to compose himself. On the short walk to the entrance the rain whips his face. He keys in the entrance code he’s not supposed to know and lets himself inside the home. A riot of strange smells and odd, echoing cries hits him. Floating above it all is the smell of kitchen grease. How much more of this? At the door to the meeting room he catches himself thinking how much his mother’s illness has drained the life out of him.

Keep moving forward and don’t look down.

He’s moving through the lounge when a hand lands on his forearm, one of the relatives, a middle-aged woman who was at the last relatives’ meeting and whose name he has already forgotten.

‘A quick word?’ the woman says.

Cullen feels himself stiffen. Here we go again. He takes a step to one side to loosen the woman’s grip on his arm.

‘This is a bit delicate so I’ll just come out with it. Your mother has been threatening my father,’ the woman says. ‘I’ve told the staff but she’s still doing it. She goes into his room at night and says all kinds of wicked things. Can’t you have a word with her?’

Cullen smiles, holding the woman’s eye. ‘I’ve never known my mother to say anything that wasn’t true.’

He watches his antagonist redden before slinking away shaking her head.

After some considerable effort, he’s able to persuade his mother to go into the dining room wearing a headscarf. They take up two seats recently vacated by other residents and the care staff bring Amanda a plate of dainty sandwiches and a large glass of sherry. He takes the opportunity to go to the nurse’s office to enquire about the hairdresser. It’s a payment issue apparently. He is astounded by the sum. Over the past month Amanda has spent more having her hair dressed than Cullen has spent on getting both cars serviced and paying for their MOTs.

‘Your mother does like her extras,’ Maura says, giving him a soft, sympathetic smile.

‘I’ll sort it,’ he says, wondering how and when it will end.

He returns to the dining room to find Amanda’s meal untouched but Amanda herself demanding more sherry.

‘These dreadful people won’t help me out with another tiny drink,’ Amanda says then, lowering her voice to a whisper, ‘I’ve got a bottle of brandy in my room. Let’s go!’