My parents told me to empty my farmhouse for their forty anniversary guests. I said my daughter was eleven days out of a bone-marrow transplant. Mum said: “Lock her upstairs.” I agreed — and on Saturday the sheriff was waiting at my gate.

of her. I said so to a nurse on the Thursday. I said: my mum’s been up twice, which is more than I expected, and the nurse said that was nice.

Both times, she went in while I was down at the canteen. Both times, she was gone by the time I got back.

And both times, she asked my twelve-year-old daughter — in an isolation room, on day nineteen, with a line in her chest — to put in a good word about the party.

Nessa never told me.

I found out three weeks after the gate, in the car, on the way back from a blood test, when she mentioned it the way children mention things — in the middle of a sentence about something else entirely.

She said: is Grandma still cross about the barn thing? She asked me about it in hospital.

I had to pull over.

I asked