“Remember Steve?”

“Is he your husband, dear?”

“Something like that.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever properly met.”

“He’s gonna take a load of stuff to the dump for you, stop you getting vermin.”

“I don’t need that. I’ve got my cats.”

“You should get shot of them too.”

“I should not. And I like my things.”

“All right, Frieda, calm down. Course we won’t take any stuff you use. We’ll just clear out the rubbish, yeah?”

“I don’t have any rubbish.”

“Why don’t you take Freida into the kitchen, Steve, yeah? Make us all a nice cup of tea, and I’ll just have a quick look around. Check the window locks and stuff.”

Movement, then fast steps coming up the stairs. With a pinch of panic I leaped up, dived into the box room and stood behind the door. I could hear Linda moving about in Frieda’s bedroom. She’d be in the box room next, I knew it. I had moments to act. I put my fingers under the wide bit of board and pulled, then I backed into the space and used the handles to pull the board to. I turned the two small wooden swivels. Then I lay quietly in the dark, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.

Moments later I could hear someone outside, the sound of boxes being moved. Behind the false panel, I stilled my breathing.

“You up there, Linda?”

“Yeah. Hang on.”

More footsteps, heavier.

The man’s voice, “What you up to? I’m stuck downstairs with the old bird.”

Linda’s voice, “I’m looking for something.”

“What you doing?”

“Checking stuff. Anyone could break in. She hasn’t got any security to speak of.”

“So get her into a home.”

“D’you have any idea how much those places cost?”

“It’s not our money, though, is it?”

“It bloody well is. Think about it. I’m Ted’s niece, so technically that makes me her only living relative, right? By marriage, anyhow, and that’s gotta count. No kids, and she definitely hasn’t got anyone else, meaning it’s all coming my way sooner or later. Stick her in a home and she could go on for years. We’d have to sell this place to fund it. There won’t be a penny left. At least here she might do us all a favor and fall down the stairs. Help me shift this box.”

“Linda, wake up: this stuff is trash. Did you not see that TV downstairs? It’s got to be at least twenty years old. Older, probably. You’d have to pay someone to take it away.”

“She’s got a load of decent jewelry somewhere, I know she has. Ted spoiled her rotten. And I do mean seriously expensive stuff. The real McCoy.”

“It won’t be in here, then, will it? It’ll be in her bedroom.”

“I’ve already checked. Nothing but junk.”

Then Frieda’s voice, close by: “Have you finished checking the windows, dear? There’s tea downstairs. And biscuits, special ones, homemade.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine up here. I was just wondering, d’you want me to look after anything for you, Frieda?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“What about your jewelry?”

“My jewelry?”

“Yeah. You’ve got a few little bits tucked away somewhere, haven’t you? D’you want to dig them out? I can take them to my place for you if you like, keep them safe.”

“Why should I want that? Silly I know, an old lady like me, but I am very fond of my beads. I like to wear them, look.”

“Not them glass ones, Frieda, other stuff. Emerald earrings, diamond rings, stuff like that.”

“There’s nothing I can think of. I’m sure I’d remember if I had anything nice like that.”

“Have a think, then.”

“I am thinking, dear. I think you must be getting confused.”

***

The Apron took the week off between Christmas and New Year, so I turned the radio up loud and sang along while I decorated the entire house with bits of holly. Or at least I did until they played Wham!’s “Last Christmas.” Then I froze, gripped by a sudden vision of our Christmas Day the year before. My father, stuffed with pudding and port, had fallen asleep in the drawing room, so the three of us had retreated into the kitchen, where Willa and I had spent the next hour alternatively laughing and then shushing each other as Mum, using a giant turkey drumstick as a microphone, had mimed along to her beloved George Michael. Oh God, I thought, I miss them so much. A hard pressure started building behind my eyes, and I ran to the radio and turned it off.

On Christmas Day itself Frieda and I had a lunch of rice and roasted vegetables and played gin rummy until the Queen’s Speech came on. Later we watched a Bond movie together, both of us curled up on the sofa. I gave Frieda a cake I’d decorated with miniature marzipan cats, and Frieda gave me an old, embroidered silk purse in which she’d placed two twenty-pound notes. The purse also contained a large wad of French francs.

“Well, they were in there already,” she said. “So I didn’t bother taking them out. I’ve no idea what they’re worth, probably pennies. Useless, I suspect, but I suppose you could always try exchanging them at the bank.”

***

Four days later, Frieda got sick. She didn’t want the TV on. Rather she wanted to listen to some of her vinyl records—a Debussy sonata, Ysaÿe’s Poème élégiaque, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. She was very quiet; I couldn’t tell if she was listening or sleeping.

She said she was too tired to face the stairs; rather, she would sleep on the old velvet sofa. I kept the curtains half closed and draped the embroidered orange throw over a lamp, bathing the sitting room in a soft amber glow. It was like being suspended in a tank, both of us floating, weightless. Waiting.

She stopped eating, then talking. She lay with her eyes shut, breathing slowly, barely awake. “Let me call someone,” I said. “A doctor. An ambulance.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She said, “Non.”

I felt a growing pressure in my chest, a rising sob that wanted to erupt from my core, a howl. Her lips moved. I bent closer to hear, her voice was barely there. So brave, I thought she said. It was only years later that I realized she’d been talking in French. Soit brave, she’d said. Not so brave. Soit brave. Be brave.

She had one hand resting on the tawny fur of a cat. I took the other, all tiny bones and thin transparent skin, and held it in mine. She took a slow, rattling breath. The pale half-moons of her eyelids stayed shut. The cats stretched and yawned. Fauré’s Élégie for piano and cello came to an end. I didn’t want to let go of her hand to lift the needle from the vinyl, so I just let it turn. Anyway, I liked the steady repeat of the hiss and the skip: soothing, constant, certain. I stroked Frieda’s white hair.