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calls when I’m on my way down Clapham High Street. It must be going on work-time in Auckland, I guess. High summer, so she’ll be wearing a sleeveless top under her conservative lawyer suit, her hair pulled back into a stern nanny bun, as I shiver my way through the freezing drizzle, shrugged deep into my leather jacket with a scarf pulled over my head like a
dupatta
. We couldn’t be more different, my sister and I. She’s reacted to the chaos of our upbringing by imposing order on every corner of her life while I’ve embraced it, refuse to make plans, can barely remember to take my keys out with me, have no idea where the documents are stored that say I own my flat. She loves the law, loves its rigid boundaries, the minute detail to which each inch can be nailed down. She used our grandmother’s legacy to get herself out of the country, set herself up in a waterside apartment lined with pale wood floors and full-wall windows where she starts each day with sunrise yoga, and drinks a single glass of sauvignon blanc on her balcony each evening. Me, I got my act together enough to buy a couple of rooms on the same road as the house-share I was in at the time, and I’ll probably get carried out of there one day, if they ever find my body beneath the sea of paper.
    â€˜Hey,’ I say.
    â€˜Hi,’ she says. ‘How are you doing?’
    â€˜Okay,’ I say. ‘You know. Life goes on, eh?’
    â€˜Right,’ she says. She doesn’t sound particularly upset either. What would he feel, I wonder, if he knew that the only person who’s shed a tear for him so far is the first of the wives who weren’t good enough? Knowing Dad, he wouldn’t even notice. Out of sight, out of mind was always his policy. He always sounded surprised to hear from me back in the days when I
did
ring for a duty chat.
    â€˜I’m going to identify the body tomorrow.’
    â€˜Blimey. How do you feel about that?’
    â€˜Freaky. Can’t decide whether I should go before lunch, or after.’
    â€˜I’d go before, if I were you. Better to be put off your lunch than throw it up. So what’s the scoop on inquests and funerals and that?’
    â€˜They’re going to do the PM after I’ve done my bit. Apparently if they can work out the cause of death the body can get released before the inquest.’
    â€˜Even with the… other stuff?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I say. ‘Even with that. If he had a heart attack or something, the handcuffs and that don’t make a lot of difference. It’s still natural causes.’
    â€˜Okay,’ she says doubtfully.
    â€˜Though there were poppers on the bedside table, apparently, so that’s nice.’
    â€˜Oh, God,’ she says. ‘Oh, God, oh, God, could he
be
any more embarrassing?’
    â€˜Farmyard animals?’
    â€˜Okay. Stop.’
    â€˜When are you coming over?’
    A pause. ‘Milly, I’m not.’
    â€˜You’re not?’
    She sighs. ‘What’s the point? He’s dead already. He’s not going to notice. There aren’t going to be any affecting deathbed reconciliations. It would just be… no. I’m not going to fly right across the world to pat the Constant Nymph and make like I’m sorry. I know he was my father, but I barely knew the guy.’
    A memory flits through my mind. The four of us in a swimming pool somewhere hot, Indy and I little enough to still be in rubber rings, Mum laughing, laughing, Dad throwing us up, up, up into the air, our delighted shrieks as we plummeted into the water, sunlight shattered on blue. He loved us once, I think. He did. Or he did a good job of looking like it.
    â€˜I…’ I say.
    â€˜I’ll send flowers,’ she says. ‘But I’m not a hypocrite.’
    But what about me? How about how I feel about it, India? I’ll have to go for both of us, and, if that’s the case, you’re