‘I will have my yellow Marigolds ready.’

‘How are they getting on?’

‘Pretty well, I think. Georgia seems quite happy now they’ve moved to the new place, and Stan’s relieved to be allowed back on his allotment. What about you?’

‘Still working. Family law is classed as an essential service, so I’m just as busy as ever, but at least it’s better than last year when I was mostly working from home in between teaching my offspring about the finer points of sourdough baking and whether Hamlet would have made a good king. Speaking of work, I know I go on a bit, but you really should make your will. I’ve been nagging you for years.’

‘I know, I know. I’ll do it, promise.’ Tess sits down on the chair beside the kitchen table. The old hand-crank sewing machine she found in a cupboard upstairs is set up at one end, and her chopping board is at the other. ‘But that’s not why you rang me, is it?’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Go on . . .’

‘Alasdair is off sick so he asked me to call you. We know you haven’t had any lodgers for a while but this is a bit of an emergency.’

‘No one since Yvette moved out just before the pandemic. Lovely girl.’

‘What’s she doing now?’

‘She moved into her own place in Musselburgh, and she’s making hand-dyed embroidery threads to sell online.’

‘The secret rent stockpile will have helped with that, I suppose?’

‘Yes, although I confess that this time I did tell her about it a couple of months before she moved. I don’t usually, but she was talking about getting a business start-up loan from the bank, and it seemed unkind to keep her in the dark.’

‘That’s why I’m ringing. It’s about a possible lodger. I’m wondering if you might consider it again?’

‘I’m not sure I can. I mean, is it allowed?’

‘It is. Of course there’s guidance for viewings about masks and Covid testing. It’s different for actually moving house.’

‘I don’t know. I’m really concerned about catching it. I have a friend who ended up in hospital on oxygen and she was double-masking and stripping off in her hall when she got back from the shops and putting her clothes in the wash immediately and then showering every single time. And she was bleaching all the groceries too, so if she can catch it there’s no hope for any of us.’

‘That was before the vaccines, though, wasn’t it?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I wouldn’t ask but this man is quite desperate.’

‘A man? I’ve only ever had female lodgers. It was Georgia’s rule, I suppose. The only other men were Keith and his friend Rab, and that was at the very beginning. It’s never occurred to me to have men.’