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said, ‘I don’t mind.’
    Nan arrived with only one small bag. She looked different, too — less grandmotherly than she had two Christmasses ago, the last time I had seen her. She was thinner, sharper. She looked like a television older person. She held Mum closely for a long time and then pushed her away and looked at her face as though searching for something there.
    â€˜You should have rung at the very beginning,’ she said, ‘I know what you’re going through. Oh Rhetta, it’s so hard, I know. When Keith died I thought my whole life had ended. I know what you must be feeling.’
    â€˜Dave’s not dead, Mum.’
    â€˜No, of course not. Oh sweetheart,’ and Nan hugged Mum to her again, but Mum stood still and hard, the way I did sometimes when Mum hugged me when I was angry about something.
    â€˜Let’s take your bag,’ Mum said, ‘you’ll have to share with Chrissie.’
    â€˜That’ll be great, won’t it Chrissie. You don’t mind, do you darling?’
    I didn’t mind at all even though I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor. It was comfortable because I would wake up in the night and hear Nan snoring her faint, wet, snuffly snores. In the morning she’d get up with me and do the things Mum used to do, make my breakfast, make Dad a cup of tea and cut me sandwiches for lunch all while she talked, almost as though she was talking to herself, but out loud.
    â€˜I knew,’ she said, ‘I knew when Keith died — it came to me like a blow that this was all we had, this one puny life and we’d better make the most of it. But raising a child by yourself, worrying about decisions — I lost it again.’
    â€˜What did you lose, Nan?’
    She sat down at the kitchen table. Dad was watching her, drinking his tea slowly.
    â€˜The knowledge of life,’ she said, and when she smiled directly at Dad, she looked so like Mum I nearly dropped my toast.
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ I said, hearing my voice whine upwards.
    â€˜You have to be true to yourself,’ Dad said, nodding.
    â€˜Boldly,’ Nan said, ‘without worrying what other people might think or how they’ll judge you. Like you and Rhetta, Dave. You’ve always grasped your dreams.’
    â€˜That’s what you hated about me,’ Dad said, ‘you wanted Rhetta to marry some up and coming accountant.’
    Nan nodded, ‘Of course I did. I was wrong, though, wasn’t I? You’ve made her very happy.’
    â€˜Thank you,’ Dad raised his mug of tea at her, ‘I have tried. I am sorry its ending like this.’
    â€˜So am I, for both of you.’
    When Dad and Nan talked like that together, I hated it. It was as though between them they were inviting death into our house. They discussed it so calmly, at the kitchen table of all places, where you sat eating toast and honey. Mum didn’t like it, either.
    â€˜You’ve changed,’ she said one day, before she hurried off to work. ‘Look at you, sitting there on your second pot of tea and the washing-up’s not even done yet.’
    â€˜I’m learning that washing-up isn’t that important,’ Nan said, ‘why don’t you take the day off, Rhetta? Do you have to rush off like this?’
    â€˜Yes! Yes I do! Of course I do! Stupid question!’ and Mum stalked off muttering.
    Sometimes it seemed as though she was just plain angry at Nan spending time with Dad.
    â€˜What do you talk about?’ she’d ask Dad, ‘what do you both talk about?’
    â€˜Just stuff, Rhetta, just stuff. Sometimes money stuff, sometimes the past. Sometimes we look at my art. She wants a coffin too, but she wants to paint it herself. She’s going to get Bodhi to measure her up.’
    â€˜Oh God,’ Mum said, ‘it’s like a different world here. At work they’re all worried about — I don’t know,