‘Hell-oo?’ She fully expected to hear her mother’s voice, confirming again the details of their lunch or some other small and irrelevant detail that Bess knew need not warrant a phone call. There was the briefest pause before the person on the other end of the phone spoke.

‘Bessie?’

The one word and its intonation, the ever so slight accentuation of the ‘S’, was enough for her to feel the pull of memory. Her gut folded with something like relief, as her tears gathered and her heart boomed in her chest. The rush of emotion was a spike that lanced her heart and let longing flood her veins. It was a voice she had spent hours and hours talking to on the phone, giggling with over the funniest shared insights, and one she had not heard in the longest time. Funny, after all these years, it took no more than a microsecond for her to place it.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, Bessie, this is weird but wonderful! Happy birthday! It’s me – it’s Michelle.’

I know! I know it’s you!

‘Goodness me! Michelle . . .’ There was something joyful about saying out loud this word that had lived for so long in her mind. Bess caught her breath and realised her hands were shaking. Why was Michelle calling now? What had happened? The knife-edge of fear glistened in the sunlight pooled on the laminate flooring of her hallway.

Don’t be ridiculous, Bess, keep calm . . . Just keep calm . . .

She felt a thick tangle of emotions, but primarily the jolt of loss, a wave of joy and a knot of shame, which all gathered in her brain and slipped down her throat, making speech tricky.

‘I can’t believe it – it’s been a long time.’ Her mouth was sticky with nerves, and with trembling limbs she took up her favourite seat on the stairs, about a third of the way up.

‘It has – a lifetime.’ Her friend gave a small humph of laughter. ‘Do you know, it’s . . . it’s the weirdest thing . . .’ Michelle started to chat like it was yesterday and not over thirty years since they had last spoken. ‘I was on my morning walk and the date came up on my phone and it was nagging me for a couple of miles: August the twentieth, August the twentieth . . . I kept repeating it, couldn’t think why it was important, and then I rounded the bend in the road and remembered: Bessie’s birthday! I knew you were now a Talbot and did a quick search, and hey presto! Your number popped up and here we are!’

Bess recognised the nervous babble as her friend remembered this about her.

‘And it was yours last month.’ The last gift I bought you: bubblegum-flavoured lip gloss . . .

‘Yep. Fifty-three. How on earth did that happen?’