Cats

he was just a boy, and Alice had moved on too. Last he'd heard, she had stayed sober long enough to film some TV film, some kind of dancing. It sounded spooky to him - something unexpected, tarot cards, but it was very popular on TV in Suffolk ...

Bill stumbled out of the churchyard, his legs as heavy as lead. This is when you want your children to support you, he thought angrily. And what've I got? A hunchback and a bastard. 'Bill Sullivan, you're an idjit, ye get what ye deserve,' he imagined Wilma saying to him in her little sing-song voice. Already he was picturing her up there with the angels, her halo setting off her unnaturally beautiful skin.

Strangely, when her will was read the next day, she left her notebooks to Alice. Everyone knew Bill had been carrying on with her for years, so why Wilma would have left her anything, who knows? Alice was visiting family in Holland with her boy Joe when Wilma died. She'd had a tough time of it since Bill went back to his wife, and her sister May had come up from London to take care of the house and cats. May was in her element - everyone said she was more cat than human. When Wilma's notebooks were delivered by the solicitor's clerk, she couldn't resist reading them. By the time Alice returned with little Joe, her sister was unrecognisable because ...