Quite honestly, I can’t think of anything worse. ‘I’m fine,’ I insist, even though I’m feeling very touchy. ‘I just didn’t fancy staying in an empty house last night.’

I don’t add that it has also been flooded and has no power—that would involve too much further interrogation.

‘You’ll have to get used to it.’ She shakes her head. ‘I have. It’s no fun living alone, believe me.’

It would be less fun living with my mother. I’ve been away from home now for over ten years. If ever I moved back, my mother and I would kill each other within days and I’m not sure I’d like to risk a fiver on who’d strike the first blow.

My mum eyes me critically. ‘You’re looking thin.’

‘He left last night, Mum. It has made no significant impression on my weight yet.’

‘It will,’ she says in a voice that sounds like the Prophet of Doom.

‘You’re done, Grandma,’ Daisy announces. ‘Now you have to go under the dryer.’ You can tell what standard of hairdressing establishment my sister frequents with her daughter.

‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ Grandma says. It’s a good job there’s not a mirror in sight.

‘Come with me, madam,’ Daisy says in her best posh voice. I hope that ‘going under the dryer’ involves putting Grandma’s head in the oven. Preferably for a long time. But no—Daisy simply leads my mother to another chair and makes a hairdryer-type sound that seems to involve spraying her with a lot of spit. My mother suffers in silence, which is not her normal modus operandi.

‘Stay for lunch, Mum,’ my insane sibling suggests.

I do my very best demonic glare. My sister shrugs as if to say, ‘What else am I supposed to do?’

‘I can’t, darling.’ We both sag with relief. Our troublesome parent gives a flick of her rollers. ‘I’m going to see Mildred. She’s having trouble with Oliver. He’s becoming incontinent.’ And no, we’re not talking about a dribbly old dog. This is some woman’s poor husband we’re discussing. Quite how having my mother to lunch will help the situation, I have no idea.

‘You’d better comb me out now,’ she instructs Daisy.

‘But you’re not cooked yet, Grandma,’ my niece wails.

‘I have to go, sweetheart.’

‘I don’t want you to,’ she says, and promptly bursts into tears.

At least my mother has some devoted fans. Daisy is inconsolable and has to be cuddled on Edie’s lap, leaving me the task of unravelling the pink rollers. Daisy has wound the hair every which way and my mother is hair-sore. My victim, sorry, client, oohs and aahs as I try my best to pick my way through the tangle.

‘I want you to be happy,’ my mother says through gritted teeth.