I’d like to say something to distract him, to take his mind off work, but the first thing that comes out of my mouth is, ‘How’s the film?’

‘Christ.’

‘That good?’

‘We’re gearing up for production.’

(I hide a smile at Michel’s use of the royal ‘we’. Once the cameras start humming, Michel’s involvement will surely be at an end.)

‘You must be excited.’

‘I’m up and down into town, with Bryon Vaux yelling in my ear, typing on-the-fly revisions on the train. It’s a bloody hopeless way of working.’

‘But you must be nearly done if you’re shooting in January.’

‘Are you kidding? Do you know we actually had an executive production meeting the other day about how immersive entertainments should be set out on the page? We’re going to be rewriting this bastard all the way into April’s edit suite.’

The doorbell rings, saving me from any more of Michel’s unbrookable enthusiasm. ‘I’ll get it.’

Poppy is about a foot shorter than I remember, and her skull has retreated from the surface of her skin, her face a mass of lines. I give her a hug. She doesn’t know what to do with it. She pats my back, a bird beating its broken wing, spastic and frightened.

I sit her down in the living room. Michel’s vanished. Hanna tries to usher little Agnes in to say hello. Having chattered non-stop about Grandma’s visit for days, Agnes hesitates, half-hidden behind the living-room door, her smile a moue of shyness. It doesn’t take her long to thaw. A few minutes later she is badgering Hanna to assemble her puppet theatre so she can give Grandma a show.

‘I’ll do it,’ I offer. How hard can it be?

‘No!’ Agnes scolds me. ‘Not that there. That doesn’t go—Not like that! That’s the wrong way round! No!’

Hanna brings in cups of tea and Poppy and I snatch a little conversation between the adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and Mr Punch. Michel has still to reappear.

I try to get Poppy into conversation, but she’s tired and a little bit grumpy and everything seems to be a trial. ‘Oh, the garden! I’ve got no-one to help me, you know.’

Poppy is happiest just listening to her granddaughter, so I leave them to it and find Hanna in the kitchen, still preparing dinner. ‘Dinners,’ she corrects me. ‘I want to get ahead.’

‘I’ll help you.’

Out in the hall, Michel finally greets his mother, with a not-very-convincing show of surprise. ‘I was off in the summerhouse! I didn’t know you were here!’

‘Daddy, come and sit down!’

‘Hang on, love.’

‘Daddy! You’re interrupting the show!’

‘She’s doing a show.’

‘Yes. I can see—’

The door clicks shut, cutting off their conversation.

‘Here.’ Hanna hands me a bag of sprouts. ‘Peel these fuckers.’

‘Is Michel all right?’

Hanna makes a face. She runs water in the sink and drops potatoes into a bowl. ‘We’ve had a bit of a barney with Poppy this week.’

‘What about?’

‘Agnes has a school project for the holidays. They’re supposed to find out what they can about their grandparents. Mick asked Poppy to bring over some stuff about his dad. She said no, that she couldn’t get up in the loft to get it. It was all packed away. And when Mick offered to drive down and help she said she wasn’t interested in a five-year-old’s school project.’

‘That sounds a bit direct.’

‘The thing is, Mick doesn’t have anything of his father’s to show his daughter. Not even a photograph.’

It occurs to me that the video clip of his father’s head being kicked around a dusty parking lot in the middle of a desert must still be floating around in the aether somewhere. Nothing really gets deleted any more. Nothing really gets forgotten.

After dinner, once Agnes is in bed, Poppy digs about in her handbag and hands Michel a cheap plastic wallet. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘I’ve brought you the photographs you wanted.’

‘Well.’ Michel flicks through the plastic leaves. ‘What is this?’

‘I just brought what I had. There aren’t many. I had a sort-out.’

‘That’s great.’ In silence, Michel turns over the pictures. ‘I’ll scan them and you can take them home with you.’

‘Oh no, dear. They’re yours now.’

‘But you’ll want to put them back in the albums. Won’t you.’

‘I’ve given you the album.’

‘What album?’

‘That album.’

‘This is an album?’

I know what Mick’s getting at. I remember from my time in the bungalow on Sand Lane, Michel’s family photographs were fastened with adhesive paper corners onto the thick black pages of old-fashioned albums. Every photograph had a description written underneath in white ink: Michel’s father’s meticulous signature.

‘Where are the albums?’

‘Oh, they were taking up too much space.’

‘You’ve thrown them away.’

‘They’re not your albums anyway, Michel. They’re the family’s.’ Poppy has a way of talking about the family that makes you forget there’s only her and Michel in it.

‘No,’ says Michel, warming up, ‘they’re not the family’s, because you’ve thrown them away.’

‘They were taking up space!’

Michel flicks back and forth through the wallet – there are barely a dozen snaps in it. ‘How am I supposed to know what these are? Or where they were taken? Who is this here? Christ.’

‘I’ve written what they are on the back,’ Poppy tells him, her voice tight and high in the back of her throat, defending her corner. And so she has. In biro. She has been very careful not to press too hard, so the writing on the back of each photograph has come out faint and spidery and barely legible. How typical of Poppy, to cook up a pointless task for herself and then make a difficulty out of it.

After Poppy has gone to bed, Hanna, Michel and I stay up drinking. We need to decompress. Even setting aside Michel’s spat with her, Poppy is a heavy presence. She is incapable of saying what she wants, while being utterly ruthless at getting it. Hanna has spent the entire afternoon trying to establish whether she takes milk in her tea any more.

‘Oh, don’t worry, dear.’

‘Yes, but do you want some?’

‘I often have it without.’

‘But do you want any?’

‘I’d be very happy with a cup of hot water.’

‘But I’ve just made you tea . . .’

‘If it wasn’t for Agnes,’ says Michel, ‘I’d never have invited the old sow.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Well, I’m glad I’ve seen her. It’s been years.’

No-one is interested in my sentimental reunion.

‘God.’ Michel shakes his head. ‘Agnes is besotted with her. She spent all last week asking when is Grandma going to get here? How long is Grandma staying? Is she staying for Christmas? You’d think Poppy would have made an effort.’

‘But Agnes knows Grandma isn’t staying for Christmas Day.’

‘I’m not talking about her staying, Hanna, I’m talking about the photographs.’

‘Oh. Well. That’s not about Agnes, is it? That’s about you and her.’

‘What did I do?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Hanna corks the whisky and gathers up our glasses, policing us. ‘Agnes will be all right.’

Michel says to me, ‘Mum thinks I want to trash her house. She thinks I can’t wait till she’s dead, so I can get my hands on all her things. It’s why she’s thrown so much away. The albums. Dad’s medals and letters.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t think like that.’

‘This is exactly the way she thinks. How else do you explain this shit?’ He waves the plastic photo wallet at me. ‘She’s afraid of me. No way is she letting me get my grubby paws on the precious things. Not by the hairs on her chinny-chin-chin. Grandma’s built her house of bricks and lit a fucking big fire in the grate.’

Hanna comes back in to announce, ‘I’m going to bed.’

But Michel has the bit between his teeth. He continues, ‘If you had any idea how often I’ve sat on Agnes’s bed of an evening, tucking her in, explaining to her why we never go to see Grandma.’