Dad took home a whole lot of Mum’s clothes when we emptied out her room at the rest home. In his downstairs bedroom, where the curtains are always drawn, sagging cardigans hang alongside trackpants and a few musty salwar kameez. The sarees are presumably still at the bottom of the dresser in his bedroom upstairs, but it’s hard to know for sure. We try to avoid going into the house. Dad, 94, worries we’ll steal their things.

The wonder of mum’s sarees used to unfold on Sunday mornings, when she draped one of the impossibly long pieces of cloth from her wardrobe over her body. She wound, tucked and pleated the seamless garment meticulously. Eye-level with her navel, I held the material taut as she folded it back on itself to make pleats tucked into her petticoat. When finished, she would float down the stairs to the waiting Hillman Hunter. The car filling with the sweet scent of clove, her choice of breath freshener.