Her mother’s care home in Enfield, a twenty-minute drive away, is a new-build, redbrick thing with smoked-glass windows so that no one can peer in and see their own devastating futures. Ruby, her mum, has had three strokes, has limited vocabulary, is half-blind, and has very patchy recall. She is also very unhappy and can usually be counted upon to find the words to express her wish to die.
