Chloe dashed into the kitchen space, then she bent low and backed out on tiptoes, arms outstretched. Up in the air she sprang at great speed. Theresa just caught a vase Chloe had skimmed before it toppled. She was now wishing she had not put the darned music on. But while Chloe was so enchanted, it would be churlish to rip the CD from the machine half-played.

So, instead, she pottered around the flat, avoiding collisions with Chloe who performed an animated dance-drama involving the sofa, the four chairs around the dining table and the entire length of the kitchen counter. At one point Chloe even grabbed the feather duster from the corner and flung it about like a magic wand, running it along the countertop, pointing it ferociously towards Theresa, who wasn’t really sure whether she was supposed to make some dramatic gesture in return.

‘Can I put it up louder?’ Chloe cried, leaping over Theresa’s pouf, grabbing the knob of the hi-fi and turning it up to full. ‘It’s sooooo wonderful!’

Although, with the volume this high, Theresa would normally be worried about disturbing the occupants of the flat upstairs, at this moment she didn’t give a flying fig; in fact, after last night, she’d be rather glad if she could upset them.

Feeling exceedingly childish, Theresa flung open the back door and let the music swell around the courtyard.

As the music reached its dramatic finale, Chloe, panting, flung herself along the length of the sofa, both arms outstretched, one leg pointing upwards towards the ceiling. Then she mimed total collapse and let her whole body go as floppy as a rag doll.

In the subsequent silence Theresa moved to the window to look out at the sea. Suddenly, with a jerk, Chloe jumped up, rushed past Theresa and out into the courtyard, shouting,

‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’

Theresa realised before the long verse that the music had gone entirely to the child’s head.

While Theresa wiped down the countertops, Chloe was standing outside the door speaking Shakespeare to the sky.

Theresa supposed there was no harm in it. Most parents, especially schoolteachers she’d have thought, would be only too delighted to have children who could spout Shakespearean speeches at the drop of a hat. Chloe even seemed to be putting on a slightly lower voice to play Romeo’s lines.

‘I take thee at thy word:

Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptised . . .’

Moving through the flat, Theresa hovered near the back door.

‘Henceforth I never will be Romeo.’

‘No,’ shouted Chloe towards the windows of the Hotel Astra. ‘Because you’ll always be my darling beloved Friar Laurence!’

Theresa looked up to see, leaning out of a tiny window, Chloe’s Romeo, Neil Muffett.