‘When they met Winifred they knew something was different about her. They got all shy, and they’re too old for that. I don’t know what they noticed, but it was something.’

The other women shake their heads.

‘You know,’ says Jane – another grandmother – ‘Now you come to mention it, mine were odd around Doris – my one, you know. I never really thought about it. You are observant, aren’t you?’

‘I was a teacher for years. You get to know what’s going on with children. Adults though. Quite another matter. John wasn’t at all happy, or his wife. What’s-her-name.’

They all laugh.

‘You’ve got your memory back, and you still can’t remember her name?’ says Pamela.

‘I know – it’s terrible!’ I laugh. ‘I could call her Mrs Woodruff, but I think she’d notice. I listen out for John using her name, and then every so often he does, and I think, got it – and I’m so busy being pleased with myself, I don’t register what he says, and it’s gone again. So he’s no help.’

‘You must have met her loads of times.’

‘Yes! Of course. I was at their wedding, obviously. “Do you, John, take—” who? Or earlier, when he first spoke of her, he must have said, “I’ve met this woman called—”. It’s not my fault she’s so boring I can’t remember who she is. And he was much more fun before. They get so serious. Stuffy. Were we like that? I suppose so, in the middle bit, when you’re all about money, and houses, and careers. Worries. It doesn’t matter. Any of it, apart from the children. It’s not what matters. This planet does, and waking up in the morning, seeing the sun, or the rain, and the world all around you. The children happy to be alive. We should all be. The human world crushes it – we crush it out of each other. Well, now I have nobody crushing me. And I can see.’

But I do have some questions.

‘Charlotte – her name’s Charlotte,’ says Cecilia. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Of course, yes. How can you remember that at one hundred and four and I can’t at a mere eighty-seven?’

They all fall silent. Nobody speaks for a moment.

‘How can we remember anything at all?’ says Jane.

We look at each other.

‘I feel like I woke up from a deep, deep sleep. I came up through dark water, thick, warm water, and then burst through into the sunlight at the surface,’ says Pamela.

We all nod. Yes, it was like that.

‘What happened?’ says Sylvia.

‘I can remember some of it,’ says Pamela. ‘Like not being able to look after the house properly. You give up a little bit, and then they take a bit more.’

‘They?’ I ask.