‘Right.’ Tess is used to doing this now, but not usually in front of Georgia. She never knows what sort of reaction there will be.

‘There have been lodgers in this house since 1931. All sorts of people. Until now they have all been women, apart from the very first two. And Keith ended up marrying the landlady so I’m not sure he counts. Fiona’s firm has always suggested people to the owner,’ she points at Georgia, ‘and so far, no one has ever been turned down. There have been women who were escaping their past, a couple were just out of prison, at least two were pregnant, some were running away from abuse, others were just stuck, being evicted, with nowhere to go.’ She leans forward, resting her elbows on the bench. ‘I was one of these women, ten years ago.’ She doesn’t give any clues about which category she had fitted into. ‘The deal, if you want to call it that, has always been the same. There are five things that you would have to agree to.’

‘Go on.’

She counts them off on her fingers.

‘First, you commit to staying for two years, but not longer than two years. This isn’t somewhere to stay for a few months and then move on. There must be a feeling that it’s your home.’

She taps the next finger. ‘Second. It’s a vegetarian house, so there is no meat or fish. I think I’m correct in saying it’s been like that since 1911. If you want to eat fish and chips or McDonald’s that’s fine, but it mustn’t come in the house. And no smoking.

‘Third. If people are around, we all have lunch together on Sunday. The neighbours sometimes come, lodgers invite their friends or their families – if they have a family – and sometimes their boyfriends or girlfriends come too. We might watch the Six Nations and shout for Scotland or just drink coffee and wine and eat pizza. We obviously haven’t been doing that for the last wee while, but hopefully we can go back to it.

‘Fourth, there must be no credit agreements. Some of the lodgers have been terribly in debt and they’ve used their two years to get themselves back on an even footing. Georgia never had to make this rule explicit until the woman who was here before me bought all sort of things on credit, didn’t make the payments and skipped off, leaving Georgia to sort out the mess.

‘And the last thing is that you must be registered to vote. Georgia takes voting very seriously. Doesn’t matter who you vote for but you must be on the electoral roll so you can do it.