As the woman sat, Theresa recalled who she was. Frances, the drama teacher whom she had met briefly while in London on the trail of Chloe.

‘What a gorgeous spot,’ said Frances, pulling her chair out better to catch the sun. ‘You’re very lucky.’

A short silence was broken only by the sound of fishing boats, clanking together along the quay.

‘I gather Roger was rather rude to your friend last night in some bar in Nice.’ She took a puff of her electronic cigarette and exhaled a billow of strawberry-scented mist. ‘I met them coming in last night. He’d been having a financial meeting with your friend’s daughter, he said. So he couldn’t have embarrassed himself more if he had tried.’ Another cloud of fruity smoke wafted past Theresa’s face. ‘Poor Roger! I think he’s realising what a dreadful mistake the whole business is.’

Theresa could see that Roger being so brutish towards Sally wouldn’t have done him any favours with Marianne.

‘The Muffett divorce should never have happened,’ Frances continued. ‘Problem is that they’re both too proud to back down. Really, they were made for one another. Both wanted the same things – the glamorous life, a few months every year in the sun, to be surrounded by the latest gadgets . . . You get the drift.’

Theresa did get the drift – of strawberry-scented vapour – and realised she preferred the smell of tobacco!

‘Then they also both got the idea that they wanted younger lovers. And that didn’t work out well for either of them. Once you reach forty it’s better just to admit it. Teenagers or even twenty-year-olds ain’t going to be sticking around for long.’

‘You do strange things when you start to panic about growing old.’ Theresa thought back to her own little crisis a few years ago which led to her moving here. ‘But sometimes it works out all right. Look at me.’

She remembered her meeting with Neil’s mother, Roger’s ex-wife. ‘Mrs Muffett seems very troubled.’

‘You had a husband leave you, didn’t you, Theresa? Did you not find yourself pouring one too many large gin and tonics. And then another . . .’

Theresa remembered the dark days after Peter had run off with the Italian au pair. She had turned to the bottle. There had been days when she never got out of her nightdress, days when she fed herself standing at the fridge taking bites out of blocks of cheese. She let herself go. For months she had been inconsolable. ‘You’re right.’ Theresa winced at the memory. ‘It wasn’t gin and tonic – it was whisky and soda. But yes, there were some very difficult weeks.’