When I was a kid, our neighbor, Mrs. Halloran, had a parrot called Captain. It only knew rude words because her late husband taught it. My mum and Mrs. Halloran did not even like each other. They had some old argument from before I was born, and nobody remembers what it was about. But every summer, cucumbers kept coming over the fence. Tomatoes sometimes, but cucumbers mostly. Then my mum got sick. That year, Mrs. Halloran started leaving soup on our step. She never rang the bell. Just soup, every Tuesday. They never talked about it afterward either.

Every Christmas, Margaret made this trifle. Nobody actually liked the trifle, but you had to have some. It was like a rule. One year, my cousin hid his portion in a napkin in his pocket. The dog found it during the carols on telly. Margaret just looked at everyone and said, "Well, more for the dog then." And she kept making it every year anyway. Twenty more years probably. Same trifle.

Margaret was the one who taught me cards. Gin rummy. She played for matchsticks and counted them after, every time, like we were in a casino. If you won, she paid up, matchstick by matchstick, dead serious. I owed her about four hundred matchsticks by the end, I think. She kept a note of it in the back of her address book. We never settled up.