‘You’ll need some help, Mum,’ Kate said. ‘Around the house and in the garden. Just until you start feeling better, I mean.’

They were sitting either side of the kitchen table in her mother’s Cornwall home; Radio 4 burbled in the background and the cat slept in front of the Aga. That everything should be so familiar, so as it should be, only underlined what Kate already knew: that life was about to change for the both of them.

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Patricia snapped. ‘I’m not an invalid, Kate. The doctors said I could be walking by the end of the year, didn't they? Didn't you hear them say that?’

Kate pursed her lips. ‘They also said that there weren’t any guarantees,’ she said. ‘And that you weren’t to rush things.’

Her mother rolled her eyes and groaned. ‘Oh, honestly, how am I meant to ‘rush things’ when I’m trapped in this wretched thing?’

She slammed her hands on the sides of the wheelchair.

‘You know what I mean,’ Kate said quietly.

On the few occasions that she returned to her childhood home, Kate found herself still intimidated by her headstrong mother. Even now - frail and unsteady after the accident - she contained the ferocity that Kate had feared in her youth.

On the drive from London earlier in the month, she’d imagined a diluted duplicate of her mother in the hospital, sedated and sentimental after her brush with death.

Instead she was met with a stony expression and the rhetorical question, ‘Why must you always be later than you say?’

Her mother took another biscuit from the tin and broke it neatly in two, passing a piece to Kate.

‘You’re staying longer than I thought,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t term start on Monday?’

‘That’s what I want to talk to you about.’

Patricia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Kate cleared her throat. ‘I’d like to stay with you,’ she said. ‘Just until you're feeling better.’

Patricia took a sip of her tea. She’d feared that her daughter would make this proposal and the thought of surrendering her independence, even temporarily, filled her with dread. Until the road accident last month, she’d not once felt her seventy years.

She looked through the French doors beside her and saw the dozens of plump, brown apples on the lawn. She’d been pretending not to notice them; the defeat that they symbolised. She’d always used the surplus fruit that the apple tree bore; there’d not been chance for rot to set in. But things were changing now, she knew that.

‘What about school?’ she asked, careful not to sound too committal.

‘I’ve spoken to them already,’ Kate said.

‘And Brian? What about Brian?’

‘He’s happy for me to stay with you.’

Patricia raised an eyebrow and Kate sighed.

‘He’s not having an affair, Mother. He’ll come down at weekends. If that’s okay with you, of course.’

Patricia sniffed. ‘So long as he doesn’t bring that ridiculous sports car.’

‘Is that a ‘yes’ then?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing permanent, though.’

‘Of course,’ Kate said, standing to clear the table.

As she reached for her mother’s cup, Patricia took her hand in her own.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.

A split second’s silence passed before she let go.

‘Be careful with that cup,’ she said in her usual bossy tone. ‘It’s bone China.’