Ursula jumped to her feet. ‘I wish I could be as don’t-mess-with-me as she was. Want coffee?’ She headed for the kitchen while Zia steeled herself not to put the correspondence in the ‘keep’ pile just because Gran had written a pithy comment on it. Outside the windows, gulls swooped like kites, crying out as if to tempt her into the bright May afternoon.

Ursula returned with two steaming coffee mugs then, turning back to the paperwork, happened on a folder of school reports, which actually made her laugh aloud. ‘Listen to this teacher’s comment: “Once we established who was in charge of Class 10, Victoria and I got on well.” And, “Victoria Chalmers is more interested in decorating the cover of her maths book than adding work to its pages.” She did tap dancing. Look at all these certificates.’

Zia craned to study the faded colours on thick card. ‘Were teachers too stuffy in those days to call her Vicky? No one ever called her Victoria.’ She picked up another folder and opened it. ‘Here’s a second batch of reports. She must have got loads. “Victoria Chalmers has settled well in Year Seven and is working hard.” Maybe she liked senior school better than primary. And water had become her thing because this folder’s full of swimming certificates.’ A large buff envelope caught her eye. It was marked in her gran’s careful cursive handwriting: Vicky. Her laughter faded and her heart misstepped as she picked it up. ‘I know what’s in this – Mum’s birth and death certificates.’

‘Aw, Zia.’ Ursula’s eyes filled with sympathy as Zia withdrew a long piece of stiff, crested paper from the envelope and unfolded it. Navy blue handwriting over red watermarking declared Victoria Chalmers to have been born in The Royal Exeter and Devon Hospital in April 1956 to Joyce Mary Chalmers and Alfred John Chalmers. The writing blurred before Zia’s eyes. ‘I was cheated of a lovely mum; always smiling, always busy with whatever house she was doing up. Telling me we were moving – again.’

‘But doing up properties was the way she made her living,’ Ursula excused the absent Vicky, though her voice oozed sympathy.

‘Yeah. But I attended five different primary schools before I moved in with Gran and Pap.’ Zia blew her nose and read from the death certificate, dated July 2001. ‘Victoria Chalmers died of traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage, or, in normal language, a bleed on the brain.’ Carefully, she refolded the certificates, slid them into the envelope and placed it on the ‘keep’ pile.