Wednesday July 28th

Day 98

I’m early for the appointment and wander round the empty rooms of my parents’ house, sun pouring in through curtainless windows. The unfamiliar colours of the walls - powder blue, raspberry pink, pale aubergine - painted by the tenant - make it harder to remember them here - in wingback chairs, shelves full of books, beetroot boiling on the stove.

I open the big glass door onto the garden from the room which was my mother’s bedroom, and step down onto the gravel. The honeysuckle on the trellis has roamed over the shed roof and waves tendrils in the air as if looking for a foothold. I remember choosing it with my mother when it was a small plant and knew where it was heading.

I’m sweeping cigarette buts from in front of the garage when the viewing couple arrive.He has an anxious squashed up face. She is wearing shorts and a cotton blouse and doesn’t say her name when I introduce myself. They walk into each room in silence, peering, opening echoey cupboards.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” he says. “ Is there a service contract for the boiler?”

I don’t think they will buy it.

When they leave I cut four long stemmed, candy pink roses from the bush in the back garden. I imagine my mother breathing in their perfume, her nose buried in the petals. I lay them on the seat beside me while I drive home, but they soften and wilt in the heat of the windscreen, releasing their pale whispering scent into the car.