‘You know this.’ I try and keep my voice level. I feel like I’ve had this conversation a million times over and it’s like every time I see her – or anyone else in the family – they listen, then hit the reset button in their minds as soon as they walk away. The only person who actually gets it is Mel, my sister, but she’s in New York, working her arse off on a secondment. Which reminds me, I must give her a call. WhatsApp is all very well, but it’d be nice to get a shot of her calm, measured approach to life, just to remind me I’m not insane.

‘You’re a social worker,’ I say as I butter a bread roll, then look at her. ‘You chose a job where you see some of the worst things in our community and deal with them on a daily basis.’

‘Yes, but I’m making a difference,’ she says.

I push my chair back in surprise and look at her, both hands pressed against the edge of the table. ‘And I’m not?’

‘Dad still died, didn’t he?’

‘Not because of nurses. He didn’t die because the nurses did something wrong.’

She shakes her head. ‘I just don’t understand how you’d want to spend your life in one of those places.’ She shudders then, and her face drops. ‘Hospitals. They’re like a prison.’

‘It’s nothing like that. We make a difference. That’s why I do it – that’s why I’m doing it. I can’t believe you’d honestly think that.’

‘I’m sorry, Alex,’ she says. She dips her head for a moment and when she looks up at me there are tears shining in her eyes, threatening to spill over and trickle down her cheeks. ‘I just – I go cold thinking about Dad in there. And the doctor telling us there was nothing they could do. And . . .’

The threatened tears leak out and she dabs at them with a paper napkin, unrolling a knife and fork to get to it, and leaving them lying askew on the table.

‘It’s not a bad job. We’re not in the habit of killing people off.’

‘It just makes me so sad to think of you spending every day somewhere so depressing.’

‘It’s not depressing,’ I say.