I realise now that her irritating perpetual reminders have shaped the person I have become, the way I speak and act; that her rather suffocating influence is something I will never be able to completely shake off. Spending little of my free time mixing with my peers, I suppose that having an elderly woman as my main source of company, I gradually developed an old-fashioned way of thinking. Throughout my time in the upper school (and subsequently university), tutors would often remark that I was an old head on young shoulders. I didn’t take it as a compliment. Eventually, keen to gain some independence, but under the pretext of the convenience of the location, I moved out and into Reggie’s flat in the final year of sixth form. I never looked back.

By the end of my second term at university, my visits to Auntie Jane had gradually dwindled and I hadn’t been home for a few weeks. I went back to visit her one dismal Sunday afternoon late in March. The curtains were drawn. I entered via the back door, as usual. As I went to turn the key in the lock, the neighbour, a plump middle-aged woman called Karen who had moved in with her family a couple of years earlier, came out into her garden. She looked concerned.

‘She all right? We’ve been away for the week and since we got home, I haven’t seen her out and about at all – she’s usually out there sweeping and doing – you know how she is. I’ve knocked a few times but there’s been no reply. I didn’t have your number or I’d have rung you …’

My heart began to thud. Karen looked on anxiously as I stepped into the kitchen and called out, but there was no response. The house was eerily silent. Gingerly, I began to make my way into the hall, Karen following close behind. A feeling of dread crept through me, my forehead beading with cold sweat.

The passageway was gloomy anyway, but the heavy curtain that hung over the front door was pulled across, plunging everything into darkness. I didn’t want to turn on the light, afraid of what might confront me. Gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the dim, and I saw it then: an odd bundle, huddled at the foot of the stairs.

I caught my breath. Auntie Jane was lying on her back, limbs askew. It was as though she had perhaps overindulged and slipped into unconsciousness where she had flopped drunkenly to the floor.

But my elderly aunt was teetotal.