The afternoon drew on, the sun moving behind the building so that the vivid colours of the garden outside dulled, though it didn’t stop people from parking themselves on benches to eat a snack or consult a phone. Finally, Ursula stretched and yawned. ‘That’s every folder checked and there’s not a hint of anything to do with your dad. I think you need to look through those letters of your mammy’s. Maybe she talked about him with her friends.’ Ursula only used words like ‘mammy’ for effect or when she went home to her big cheerful family near Dublin.

‘I suppose so.’ Slowly, Zia pulled the beach bag from the otherwise empty suitcase. The white areas were slightly grey, the blue faded. She remembered discovering it, right at the back of the wardrobe top, as if retrieved from Zia’s mum’s things when she died and then forgotten.

Slowly, she slid open the zip and took out a sheaf of letters, spilling them across the oak table. Her fingertips wandered over envelopes: blue, pink, white and buff. Inside each was either lined writing pad paper or occasionally decorated sheets; paper that had lain undisturbed for more than twenty years. Zia felt tingly and comforted, all at once. ‘Some people might say I’m intruding. But suddenly I feel almost as if I’m going to meet her again. I deserve a chance to know her better, don’t I?’

‘Of course you do,’ Ursula approved.

‘I’ll sort them into some kind of order first.’ Zia spent the next fifteen minutes flipping through envelopes while Ursula switched on a couple of lamps against the encroaching evening then vanished into the kitchen, returning after some clattering about. ‘I’ve stuck chicken and jacket spuds in the oven.’

‘Mm,’ Zia answered absently, her attention still on the old letters spread out like tarot cards in front of her. ‘There are lots of letters from Gran and Pap and some from friends. The earliest’s dated December 1991. I’d been born the previous October and we’d just moved from Devon to Northamptonshire. The letters continue as we move to Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.’ She neatened the rows.

Ursula resumed her seat, picked up the bag and peered inside. ‘Is this empty?’

Absently, Zia nodded, pausing to prepare to poke her nose into her mum’s life. ‘It’s quite nice that everyone wrote to each other in those days.’

Ursula pulled a brown envelope from a pocket in the beach bag. ‘Here’s another envelope but there’s nothing written on it.’

Zia continued her own line of thought. ‘No one will ever find a bag of our letters, will they? We’re all emails and WhatsApp. It’ll just vanish. It’s a pity. Maybe that’s why people keep journals.’ When Ursula didn’t answer, she glanced up.