Scared of the runaway thoughts flying around my head, I attempted to do some mindfulness as I left the café, by pinning my gaze to the view. ‘Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purifying the mind.’ Nina had texted me Amit Ray’s words once, when I’d told her I was having trouble sleeping.

The sandy beach was mostly studded with parents and pre-school toddlers, and a group of visiting students pulling off footwear and racing to the water’s edge, shouts and laughter floating on the air.

I remembered the days when Rob and I had the place to ourselves, and would take it in turns to bury each other on the beach. I could still remember the cool, heavy weight on my arms and legs, and how implicitly I’d trusted Rob not to bury me completely – even after he asked once if it was possible to ‘breathe through sand’.

Instantly, his face popped into my head, and his expression as he’d talked about leaving the band. I began walking more briskly, trying to banish the image. Nan lived on the north side of the village, and normally the walk would have been long enough to clear my head, but today it wasn’t working. Every footstep seemed to loosen more questions, until my brain felt as if it was rattling with them, and my breathing sounded laboured. It was a relief to finally reach her bungalow, with its mottled brown roof and pillar-box red front door. At least here nothing had changed, apart from more ivy creeping around the trunk of the sycamore tree in the front garden, where I used to believe fairies lived.

Nan had found a new lease of life after my grandfather’s death, five years ago. Finally freed from her role as ‘wronged wife’ her first hobby had been renovating the bungalow. She was particularly proud of the conservatory she’d had built on the back, where she loved to sit in the evenings with a glass of wine – when she wasn’t watching films on her fifty-inch television.

‘I’m watching Netflix and chilling tonight,’ she’d said the last time we’d spoken, adding with a low-pitched chuckle, ‘and, yes, I do know what that means.’ I’d actually felt envious. My grandmother’s love life had been in a lot better shape than mine.

I knocked briskly on the front door before pushing it open, mindful of the sight that had greeted me at home the evening before.

‘Hi, Nan, it’s Cassandra!’

Nan always called people by their full name, much to Dad’s annoyance. ‘Edmund sounds so old-fashioned,’ he still protested, like a schoolboy.

‘You should be proud to be named after a famous mountaineer,’ Nan always argued. ‘Plenty of famous and well-respected men were called Edmund.’

We hadn’t been able to name any.

As I entered the kitchen, my jaw dropped for the second time that day. There were boxes everywhere, stuffed with books, crockery, pans, linen and the glass ornaments Nan had collected over the years, most of them bought by me for birthdays and Christmas. There was hardly anything left on her ‘vintage’ oak dresser, and all the surfaces were empty, apart from a pan on the stove.

Had I interrupted a burglary? It was highly unlikely robbers would arrive with cardboard boxes to magic away their loot – or that they’d be interested in Nan’s cookery books, which weren’t old enough to be valuable – and there couldn’t be any demand for novelty salt-and-pepper pots shaped like the Queen and a corgi.

Aware that I’d alerted possible intruders to my presence, I grabbed a bread knife from one of the boxes and crept into the hallway, picturing a pair of masked burglars frozen mid-spree, waiting to cosh me over the head with the one of Nan’s heavy doorstops.

The normally pristine hallway was also cluttered with boxes and bags and I recognised one of Nan’s favourite blouses billowing out, as well as a stylish winter coat she’d once let me borrow. My breath caught in my throat. Was she moving? Surely Mum and Dad would have mentioned it?

Heart walloping my ribcage, I tiptoed through to the low-ceilinged living room, where I was greeted by a similar scene: boxes and bags stuffed with cushions, more books, and even the expensive cashmere throw that Mum had bought when Nan revamped the bungalow, which was usually draped along the back of her cream leather sofa. The fireside rug was rolled up and stacked in one corner, leaving the waxed floorboards bare, and the dining chairs were stacked on top of the table.

Maybe she was having a belated and very extensive, spring clean. It wouldn’t be like Nan, who had ‘more interesting things to do than move dust about’, and although I was no expert on cleaning I was certain you didn’t need to take down every picture. Where was the photo of me as a toddler, cuddling a cross-looking dog (no one knew whose it was) and the picture of her with her mother, who’d been a ‘great beauty’ in her day?

‘Nan?’ My voice sounded more querulous than I’d have liked, but as I squeezed around the boxes, heading for the conservatory, I saw her coming in from the back garden.

‘Cassandra, sweetheart, you’re here!’ she cried, and I barely had time to put down the knife, and register that there was something different about her, before I was pulled into a hug as soft as a feather-bed. ‘Look at you,’ she said, releasing me to arm’s length to study my face. ‘Pretty as a picture.’

‘Hardly,’ I said, automatically. ‘Look at you.’ I stepped back to take her in, temporarily lost for words.

‘What do you think?’ She rotated slowly, arms outstretched.

I continued staring. There’d always been something of the duchess about Nan, with her taste for elegant clothes and her silvery hair, which she kept swept off her face in a silver clasp. Her upright bearing made her appear taller than she was, and my friends used to admire her snazzy outfits, which she’d credited with being half-French, despite having lived in Devon for most of her life.

There was nothing stylish about her appearance today. Her normally immaculate hair was hanging in a plait down the middle of her back, and the shapeless garment she was wearing reached her ankles and looked to be made of sacking. Clearly making the most of the warm weather, her feet were bare, and her face – normally made up with bronze eyeshadow to complement her blue eyes, and with her trademark ‘tawny’ lipstick (red was for ‘ladies of the night’) – was make-up free, giving her the appearance of a mole that had appeared from underground. Her eyes seemed much smaller and, although her face was remarkably unlined for a seventy-eight-year-old (which she put down to always wearing a hat in the sun), it looked less vibrant, like a faded photograph.

An icy finger touched my heart. ‘Nan, what’s wrong?’ I gripped her fingers, noticing the knotty veins on the backs of her hands, and that her nails were unvarnished for the first time I could remember, with a rim of dirt underneath. ‘Are you ill?’

‘What?’ Her eyebrows (so pale, she must have been drawing them in for years) rose in alarm. ‘Of course I’m not ill, ma chère fille!’ she said in the exaggerated French accent that drove Dad mad. ‘I’m winding down, that’s all.’

‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’

‘All of this?’ She wafted a slender arm around, scowling at one of the boxes as though it had sworn at her. ‘I read this wonderful article in a magazine by a Japanese lady called the Decluttering Queen, when I was at the dentist’s last week,’ she said. ‘Apparently, holding on to clutter is holding on to the past and, to feel free, you must let it go.’ Her eyelids closed in a parody of bliss. ‘I’m releasing the past, Cassandra, readying myself for the next life.’

Ignoring the last bit, I said, ‘But, Nan, decluttering means sorting out some stuff for the charity shop, not getting rid of everything you own.’ I nudged a box containing her sewing machine with my foot. ‘You love your sewing machine.’

‘There’ll be no need for it, where I’m going.’

‘Stop it, Nan, you’re not going anywhere.’ I plucked a silky top, decorated with pearls, from one of the bags. ‘Didn’t Mum buy you this?’

Her eyes fluttered open. ‘I’ve made myself some bamboo robes, that’s all I’ll need from now on.’ She fingered the shapeless fabric she was wearing, which looked like the only thing it should hold was shopping. ‘Natural fibres,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d become environmentally friendly while I’m at it.’

I groaned silently. ‘Where’s the watch we got you for your seventieth birthday?’

She glanced at the ghost of a watchstrap around her wrist. ‘I don’t need to know what the time is, I can tell by the sun.’

I glanced behind her. At least the froth of plants and exotic flowers in her beloved conservatory hadn’t budged. ‘What about when it’s raining?’

‘I’m just saying, Cassandra, that I’m no longer tied by time.’

Her overly patient tone was that of someone recently converted to a cult – or maybe someone who was losing their grip on reality.

I focused my gaze more sharply on her face. ‘Nan, what year is it? Who’s the Prime Minister?’

The lines on her forehead concertinaed. ‘I’m not losing my mind,’ she said, wagging a ringless finger. Nan had always worn rings, though she’d kept her wedding finger bare since my grandfather died, declaring her marriage null and void despite all her ‘best efforts’. ‘In fact, I’ve never been clearer about how I’d like to live out my final years.’

‘Nan, stop saying things like that.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said, with a noble and enigmatic air. ‘I’ve come to terms with it.’ She cast her eyes around and gave a satisfied nod, and I got the feeling this fad was a lot more serious than previous ones – even learning to play the banjo, which had gone beyond the point of reasonableness and had left her with a permanently weak wrist. ‘Possessions shackle you to the past, and there’s been enough shackling in this family,’ she went on, regally. ‘I just wish I’d unshackled myself from my cheating husband a lot sooner, instead of waiting for death to finally unshackle us.’

‘Nan, stop saying unshackle.’

‘I kept your father shackled for far too long.’ She flexed her jaw. ‘You’ve no idea how guilty and ashamed I am that we put him through what we did, Cassandra.’

‘I do, because you’ve mentioned it once or twice, but—’

‘The least I can do now is make sure I’m not a burden in my old age because, as fit as I am’ – she flexed her arm for me to squeeze the wiry muscles – ‘it won’t last for ever, and I want to be as healthy as possible as I face the end.’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘I’m growing my own vegetables and living off the land and freeing my mind to embrace this nouveau chapitre.’ Another chin-tilted pause. ‘New chapter,’ she clarified.

‘Yes, I got that, Nan.’

‘When the time comes, I plan to slip quietly away in my sleep—’

‘I don’t think it works like that.’

‘—and to be buried in the grounds. Your father won’t even need to arrange a funeral.’

‘Oh, Nan.’ I wanted to contradict her; to tell her that of course Dad would want to arrange her funeral, and that we didn’t even want to think about her dying, but I could see she genuinely believed she was doing Dad a big favour. I knew she felt dreadful that she’d relied on him so much when he was young – to mediate between her and his father – and I supposed this was her way of trying to alleviate the guilt. ‘You can’t get rid of these photo albums.’ Spotting several of them in one of the unopened boxes, I tugged one out and began flipping through the pages. ‘Dad might want to keep some of these.’ My gaze landed on a photo of him astride a big motorbike, my grandfather holding the handlebars to keep it steady. Dad must have been about ten, his bony knees protruding from a pair of khaki shorts, smiling proudly up at his beaming father.

‘Give that to me.’ Nan snatched the album and flung it across the room like a Frisbee. ‘I should have burnt the pictures of that cheating cheval.’

I had a feeling she’d meant dog, not horse, but it didn’t seem right to correct her. ‘Nan, you’re not being fair,’ I said. My grandfather had undoubtedly been a terrible husband, but he’d been a good granddad and father; something that had conflicted Dad terribly. ‘You can’t wipe him from history, it’s not fair to Dad.’

‘It’s my stuff,’ said Nan, her stubborn streak rearing its head. ‘If I want to get rid of it all, I will. It’ll save Edmund having to do it when I’m gone.’

I sighed. ‘Mum told me they hardly see you these days.’

‘They hardly see you either,’ she said, with a trace of reproach. ‘But they don’t complain about that.’

‘I live in London and have a very demanding job,’ I pointed out, aware with a stab of panic that neither statement was true. ‘I can’t get home as much as I’d like, but you’re only a mile away.’

‘Well, Lydia should be glad I’m not the sort of mother-in-law who’s always on the doorstep.’

‘You know she thinks the world of you, Nan, especially not having a mum of her own.’

Nan’s face softened. ‘I think the world of her too, Cassandra, but I will not be a burden.’

I closed my eyes, briefly. ‘Do Mum and Dad know about all this?’

‘They’re happy for me to do whatever I want, you know what they’re like,’ she said, doing another twirl to take in the box-scattered room. ‘They’re pleased I’ve got my own interests and that they don’t have to entertain me all the time. That I’m not a—’

‘Burden.’ I blew out another sigh. I was clearly wasting my breath. ‘What does your… boyfriend think?’ She was bound to have a new one on the go. She’d been making up for lost time since becoming a widow, like a child let loose in a sweet shop.

‘I’m done with men.’ She waved a hand, dismissing the entire gender. ‘I’m celibate from now on.’

Wishing I hadn’t asked, I looked at the boxes and bags. ‘Where’s it all going to go?’

I wouldn’t have put it past her to have booked a removal van or a skip, and was wondering whether I could persuade her to wait a week or two in case she changed her mind, when she said, ‘Danny’s booked some storage.’ A smile lifted her face. ‘He’s been a godsend,’ she went on. ‘He’s been helping me in the garden too, with my allotment. He’s cleared a space where I can meditate.’

‘Danny?’ I said. ‘Danny Fleetwood?’

Her smile broadened. ‘Weren’t you at school with him?’

‘Yes,’ I said, briefly wishing I was still at Nina’s, job-surfing and watching re-runs of Criminal Minds.

‘Come and see what we’ve done.’ Before I’d had a chance to sort through my scattered thoughts, Nan had taken my hand and was leading me through the conservatory with a casual, ‘All these plants are going, they take too much looking after,’ and out into the wide, hedge-bordered garden, which had been partly transformed into an allotment, with what looked like a wigwam in the middle, twined with leaves.

‘I’ll have potatoes, carrots, radishes and cabbages, which I’ll turn into soup every day n’est ce pas?’ Even I knew that last bit didn’t make any sense. ‘And I’m going to get some chickens for eggs, and to fatten up for Christmas – if I’m still here. Much better for body and soul to eat organically. I’ll know exactly what I’m eating, because I’ll know what they’ve been eating.’

I knew I ought to be protesting against this outrageous plan – surely she wasn’t planning to slaughter birds for food – but my eyes were drawn to a figure stooped over a spade at the end of the garden, his open shirt covering a broad back. He straightened, as if sensing my gaze, and wiped his arm across his forehead.

‘Cassie Maitland?’ The flash of his teeth was dazzling as he broke into a grin. ‘Is that really you?’

And then he was striding towards me and all I could think was, Oh my god, he’s gorgeous.