“They can be scattered here, in the Garden of Remembrance, if you would prefer,” he said. “That way, you wouldn’t need to provide for a container.”

“Container?” I asked.

“If you wanted to take the ashes away, you would have to provide or pay for a container. Perhaps a box or an urn.”

“Oh,” I said. “No. Just have them scattered here, then. I don’t want them.”

“Right,” he said. “That will be all, then. I’ll send you an itemized receipt in due course.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That will be fine.”

He nodded to me, it was almost a bow, and then he walked quickly across to his car and drove away. I wondered if funeral directors laughed more at home than other people to make up for the solemnness of their work or whether they are so conditioned to having a sad disposition that they have difficulty letting their hair down.

I was left standing alone in the crematorium parking lot with that strange feeling of having mislaid something but wasn’t quite sure what, like when you leave a shopping bag on the counter and get halfway home before realizing it.

Perhaps it was a childhood that I’d mislaid, with loving parents, family holidays and happy Christmases. But was it my childhood that I’d lost or those of my nonexistent children? I stood next to my car and wept.

A few early arrivals for the next funeral spilled out of their cars and made their somber way over towards the chapel. None of them bothered me. Weeping in a crematorium parking lot was not only acceptable, it was expected.

Early on Saturday morning I went to see my grandmother. I told myself it had nothing to do with having been to my father’s funeral the day before, but, of course, it did. I desperately wanted to ask her some more questions.

Sophie had come to the front door to see me off, still in her dressing gown and slippers. As far as she was concerned, I’d spent the previous afternoon at Warwick races. I would tell her the truth, I thought, eventually.

“Give her my love,” she’d said as I’d left.

“I will,” I had replied, but both of us knew that my grandmother almost certainly wouldn’t remember who Sophie was. She might not even remember who I was either, but I was going early in the day to give her the best chance. My grandmother was at her most lucid when she was not tired, and, very occasionally, she would actually telephone me around seven in the morning and sound almost normal. But each day varied, and the good days were getting fewer, shorter and less frequent. It was an ever-steepening downhill run towards total full-blown dementia, with just occasional small plateaus of normality to break the journey. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t survive long enough to reach rock bottom.

“Hello, Nanna,” I said, going into her room.

She was sitting in her armchair, looking out of the window, and she turned towards me. I went over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello, Ned,” she said. “How lovely.”

Today was clearly a good day. She looked very smart in a dark skirt, a white blouse with a line of small yellow-and-pink embroidered flowers down the center and a lavender-colored cardigan over it, open at the front. And she’d had her hair done since my last visit.

“You look beautiful,” I said, meaning it.

She smiled at me, full of understanding. How I wished it could last for ever.

I sat on the end of her bed next to her chair.

“How have you been?” I asked. “I like your hair.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Julie will be here soon.”

“Who is Julie?” I asked.

“Julie,” she repeated. “She’ll be here soon.”

I decided not to ask again.

“Sophie sends her love,” I said. A small, quizzical expression came into her eyes. “You remember Sophie. She’s my wife.”

“Oh yes,” she said, but I wasn’t sure she really knew.

There was a knock on the door, and one of the nursing home staff put her head into the room. “Everything OK?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“Would you like some tea or coffee?”

“Coffee would be lovely,” I said. I turned to my grandmother. “Nanna, would you like some coffee or tea?”

“I don’t drink tea,” she said.

“I’ll bring her some anyway,” said the staff member with a smile. “She always says she doesn’t drink tea, but she must have at least six or seven cups a day. Milk and sugar?”

“Yes, please,” I said. “One sugar.”

The head withdrew and the door closed.

“I like Julie,” my grandmother said again.

“Was that Julie?” I asked, but Nanna didn’t answer. She was looking again out of the window. I took her hand in mine and stroked it.

We sat silently for a while until the woman came back in with a tray and two cups.

“Are you Julie?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “I’m Laura. But we do have a Julie here, and your grandmother calls all of us Julie. We don’t mind. I’ll answer to anything.” She laughed. “Here you are, Mrs. Talbot,” Laura said, putting the tray down on a table beside her armchair.

It was comforting for me to know that there were such caring people looking after my Nanna.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Just pull the alarm if you need anything,” Laura said, pointing at a red cord that hung down the wall alongside my grandmother’s bed. “She should be all right for a while, but call if she needs the loo or anything. She can sometimes get quite urgent.”

“Thank you,” I said again, “I will.”

I sat patiently drinking my coffee as my grandmother’s tea slowly cooled.

“Here, Nanna,” I said, giving her the cup. “Don’t forget your tea.”

“I don’t drink tea,” she said, but she still took the china cup in her thin, bony hands and drank from it. The tea was soon all gone, so I took the empty cup from her and put it back on the tray.

“Nanna,” I said. She went on looking out of the window. “Nanna,” I repeated a little louder while also pulling on her arm. She slowly turned to face me.

“Nanna, can you tell me about my parents? Can you tell me about Peter and Tricia?” It didn’t seem odd for me to call my parents by their names rather than Mummy and Daddy. I’d never had a mummy and daddy, only a nanna and grandpa.

She looked up at my face, but the sharpness of fifteen minutes previously had begun to fade. I feared I had missed my chance and that I was losing her. At the best of times, what I was asking would not have been easy for either of us. In her present state, it might be impossible.

“Nanna,” I said again with some urgency, “tell me about Peter and Tricia.”

“Peter and Tricia?” she said, some of the sharpness returning.

“Yes, Nanna. Peter, your son, and Tricia, his wife.”

“Such a dreadful thing,” she said, turning away from me and again looking out of the window.

“What was a dreadful thing?”

“What he did to her,” she said.

“What did he do to her?” I asked, pulling gently on her hand to keep her attention. She turned back slightly towards me.

“He killed her,” she said slowly. “He murdered her.”

“Tricia?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. She looked back up at my face. “He murdered Tricia.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why did he murder Tricia?”

“Because of the baby,” she said.

“What about the baby?” I pressed her. “Why did he murder her because of the baby?” I wondered if he had killed her because the baby wasn’t his.

My grandmother stared into my eyes. “He killed the baby too,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Whose baby was it?”

“Tricia’s baby,” she said

“But was Peter the father?”

“Peter ran away,” she said.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Peter ran away because he killed Tricia. But was Peter the father of her baby?”

That quizzical look appeared again in her eyes.

“It wasn’t Peter,” she said slowly. “It was Teddy who murdered Tricia.”

I sat there staring at her, thinking that she must be confused.

“No,” I said. “Surely it was Peter who murdered Tricia? That’s why he ran away.”