"Prentice, what is going on between you and Kenneth?"

The courtyard was cobbled; her wheelchair wobbled and jerked under my hands as I pushed her. "We've fallen out, gran," I told her.

"I'm not stupid, Prentice, I can see that." She looked up at me. Her eyes were fierce and grey, as they always had been. Her hair was grey now, too, and thinning. The summer sun cleared the surrounding oaks and I could see her pale scalp through the wisps of white.

"No, gran, I know you're not stupid."

"Well, then?" She waved her stick towards the outhouses. "Let's see if that damn car's still there." She glanced back at me again as I wheeled the chair round on its new heading, towards the green double doors of one of the courtyard garages. "Well, then?" she repeated.

I sighed. "It's a matter of principle, gran." Stopping at the garage doors, she used her stick to knock the hasp off its staple, pushed at one door till its planks bowed slightly, then, wedging her stick into the resulting gap, levered the other door open, a bolt at one corner scraping and tinkling through a groove worn in the cobbles. I pulled the chair back to let the garage door swing. Inside it was dark. Motes swirled in the sunlight falling across the black entrance. I could just make out the corner of a thin green tarpaulin, draped angularly about level with my waist. Grandma Margot lifted the edge of the tarp with her stick, and flicked it away with surprising strength. The cover fell away from the front of the car and I pushed her further into the garage.

"Principle?" she said, leaning forward in the chair to inspect the long dark bonnet of the car, and pushing the tarp back still further until she had revealed the auto up to its windscreen. The wheels had no tyres; the car rested on blocks of wood. "What principle? The principle of not entering your father's house? Your own family home?" Another flick of the cane and the covering moved up the screen, then fell back again.