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.

is the gate locked?

Sheriff Doss held up the notice in its plastic sleeve. He said: ma’am, the property owner has withdrawn permission for you and your guests to enter.

She said: I am her mother.

He said: that doesn’t make you the owner.

My father pointed past him at the house and said: Maud agreed to clear the place.

That was when I came out onto the porch.

I said: I did. I cleared it of everything that belongs to you.

The guests were coming off the coaches by then. Forty of them, in good clothes, standing about on my gravel with gift bags, not sure whether this was part of it.

And my mother gave me the smile I have known my entire life.

The cool one. The one that is not an expression so much as a strategy, and which means she is waiting for embarrassment to