The key is in the lock before I consider the repercussions, and I turn it, tugging hard, but the padlock stops the front door from opening fully. Through the crack, I can smell memories of home, stale food and washing powder and love, but there’s something else, an edge of darkness that I can taste at the back of my mouth until it’s washed away by the bitter salt of my tears.

Pearline is in her dressing gown. She’s a few years younger than Aunt Peg but I’ve known her for almost two decades. She’s square and comfortable, and she pulls me into an embrace.

‘Let me look at you,’ she says. ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time. I miss you.’ She casts an appraising eye over Lawrie. ‘This your boyfriend?’

We’re both quick to deny it, and she raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything more. Instead she guides us into her immaculate sitting room and brings us steaming cups of Rooibos tea.

‘What happened?’

Pearline doesn’t answer my question straight away. She pours herself a cup and adds a heaped teaspoon of sugar. She stirs it slowly, taking her time. Her eyes, when they meet mine, are liquid with sorrow.

‘I didn’t see Peg,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘I didn’t hear her. No radio. No singing.’ She chuckles at the memory of my aunt’s love of musicals before growing serious again. ‘There was nothing.’

Her face crumples. She tells us she waited a whole day before knocking on Aunt Peg’s door – even though she knew something wasn’t right – and when Peg didn’t answer, she let herself in with the spare key she keeps in a broken teapot for emergencies.

Pearline thumps her ringed hand against her sofa cushion and adjusts the plate of grater cakes she has laid out. She presses a finger to a stray crumb of sweetened coconut, and then to her mouth. Fury at her delaying tactics whitens my vision – why can’t she just come out and say it? – but then the crashing cymbals of clarity strike. She’s composing herself.

The front door wouldn’t open, she says, as if something was blocking it. ‘I called for Peg,’ she says, ‘I called and called.’ But my aunt didn’t answer.

Pearline rallied a few of the neighbours and they managed to force their way in. She takes a sip of her tea, and a tear snakes its way down her cheek.

‘Peg was lying in the hallway.’ She draws us a picture with words. My aunt was wearing her nightie, a spilled mug of Ovaltine on the carpet, this morning’s post scattered about her. Face down, her skin as cold as the snow on the ground outside.

‘It sounds like a heart attack,’ I say, reaching out to squeeze her warm hand. ‘Or a stroke. Just one of those awful things.’