Now Brian said, mournfully, ‘Eva’s gone to bed in her clothes and shoes.’

His mother said, ‘I can’t say I’m surprised, Brian. She’s always brought attention to herself. Do you remember when we all went to the caravan that Easter in 1986? She took a suitcase full of her ridiculous beatnik clothes. You don’t wear beatnik clothes at Wells-Next-The-Sea. Everybody was staring at her.’

Eva screamed from upstairs, ‘You shouldn’t have thrown my lovely black clothes into the sea!’

Brian hadn’t heard his wife scream before.

Yvonne Beaver asked, ‘What’s that screaming?’

Brian lied. ‘It’s the television. Somebody’s just won a lot of money on Eggheads.’

His mother said, ‘She looked very presentable in the holiday wear I bought her.’

As Eva listened, she remembered taking the hideous clothes out of the carrier bag. They had smelled as if they had been in a damp warehouse in the Far East for years, and the colours were lurid mauves, pinks and yellows. There had been a pair of what Eva thought looked like men’s sandals and a beige, pensioner-style anorak. When she tried them on, she looked twenty years older.

Brian said to his mother, ‘I don’t know what to do, Mummy.’

Yvonne said, ‘She’s probably drunk. Leave her to sleep it off.’

Eva threw the phone across the room and screamed, ‘They were men’s sandals she bought me in Wells-Next-The-Sea! I saw men wearing them with white socks! You should have protected me from her, Brian! You should have said, “My wife would not be seen dead in these hideous sandals!”‘

She had screamed so loudly that her throat hurt. She shouted downstairs and asked Brian to bring her a glass of water.

Brian said, ‘Hang on, Mummy. Eva wants a glass of water.’