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And all the while, I was aware that Gramp was ill. I tried to get to talk to him, if not see him, at least once a week, and every time he seemed just that little bit weaker, slightly more tired. I guess I knew what was coming, but didn’t want to think about it too much.

As the day of the exam approached, Ed, who had been gradually increasing the pressure, relented. ‘If you don’t know it now, then you never will,’ he said, which just made me think, Then I certainly never will. ‘It’s important you relax now. Too much stress and it’ll only hinder your performance. Just a bit of light revision, and you’ll be fine.’

Which was all very well, but I knew better than he did how much I didn’t know, and all the stupid mistakes I’d made kept coming back to me. It got so that I was waking in the small hours of the morning with all this going through my head, plus worries about Gramp’s illness mixed in.

FORTY-EIGHT

Gramp had been admitted to a hospice to die. It was a beautiful building, almost like an old stately home, surrounded by well-tended gardens. He was having trouble walking because of his breathlessness, so the staff had made sure he had a bed by the window. They were fantastic, even down to the cleaners who greeted you by name when you arrived. Gramp was happy to be there, and it was the right time for him, he had asked to go. He had become frail, and the robust, able man I had known had turned into a slow elderly gentleman. He had not lost his sense of humour though. My Gramp was still there inside the frail body he now owned.

He had only been there a couple of days when Dad rang me at work. ‘Hi, love,’ he said in a soft voice.

‘What’s up, Pops?’ I asked.

‘I think you need to come down to the hospice. Gramp is not good and I don’t think it will be long now.’

‘OK,’ I replied, feeling suddenly afraid, like being kicked in the stomach, hard.

Clive had told me that I could go, and that I should go, but I didn’t know what to do. I was surrounded by dead bodies, but deep down I was so afraid to go to the hospice because it was steeped in death. I rang Luke who offered to come and get me, but I had to do this on my own. Within half an hour I had left the mortuary and was slowly walking the short distance to the hospice. It was almost as if my legs didn’t want to take me there, even though my head and heart wanted to go. The twenty-minute walk from the hospital to the hospice this time took me forty-five minutes, a walk I knew well, but if you had asked me that evening, I couldn’t have told you how I got there. It was almost as if autopilot had kicked in good and proper.

I entered the big wooden doors of the hospice just as it started to get dark about four o’clock. There was a huge spray of lilies in the vestibule and the smell was overpowering. One of the domestic assistants was polishing the wooden chest they stood on. I looked at her and smiled, asked her how she was, then mumbled something about the dark evenings. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Miss Williams,’ was her response.

I was stunned. I was too late. My selfish dawdling and deciding what was best for me meant I had missed my last chance to see my Gramp breathing. Talk about being kicked in the stomach again, although I felt I deserved to be kicked a lot harder at that moment. I suddenly froze: was Dad going to be angry with me? He had rung two or so hours ago asking me to go. I sat down on the nearest chair and took a few deep breaths.

After composing myself for a few minutes, I climbed the wooden stairs up to the area where Gramp’s bed was. The curtains were drawn around him, and I could see Mum and Dad’s feet behind the gap at the bottom. ‘Dad?’ I said quietly, not knowing what the reaction would be. I felt as though I had totally let him down. This was about his father; how on earth would I feel in this situation, especially when you knew that your daughter had a fantastic relationship with your dad. My head was doing somersaults. Dad came out from behind the curtain. As he did I glimpsed Gramp. He was sitting up, dressed