‘He’s at yoga,’ she says and smiles ruefully at my surprise. ‘I know! Can you believe it? He says it helps him de-stress. Come on through. I’ve made us a late lunch. We never have the chance to talk, just the two of us.’

Lunch? I’d imagined grabbing the car keys and staying for a quick coffee, maybe, to be in the Cotswolds by late afternoon, but I follow her into the dining room.

The table is set for two, formally, with white linen. I don’t know how long yoga lasts, but my father’s obviously not joining us. Through the French windows, the lawn is as bright and precision-cut as a bowling green, the borders are weedless, the laurel bushes shaped into perfect spheres. ‘What’s he stressed about?’ I ask, half expecting her to say me.

‘I don’t know and I’m not sure he does, either. He’s not sleeping very well.’

‘Do you want a hand in the kitchen?’

‘Sit. It’s all ready, darling.’ She goes to the kitchen and comes back with a salad of leaves, capers and pomegranate seeds, and a plate of goat’s cheese. She sits opposite me and gives a faint smile as she unfolds her napkin.

It’s been so long since we spent time together, just the two of us, that the silence is unsettling. ‘Everything’s all right between you two, isn’t it?’ I ask.

‘Yes, of course. We get in each other’s hair from time to time, but retirement is a period of transition. The Bennetts went through the same thing. Francis said at one point he was thinking of committing a crime so that Ruth could only visit him in prison once a week.’

We both smile at this because their old friends the Bennetts are models of propriety.

My mother’s smile fades more quickly than mine, though. She chews the salad slowly and mindfully, a habit from her modelling days. I’m guessing that she, like me, is trying to find a suitable topic of conversation.

‘Thanks for lending me the car,’ I say.

My mother’s eating her pomegranate seeds one by one. She looks up at me from her plate. ‘Doesn’t Mick drive?’

‘Mick and I have broken up.’

‘Oh, Fern,’ she says and puts her cutlery down carefully as if this new disappointment has taken away her appetite. ‘And what’s going on in the Cotswolds?’ she asks.

‘It’s a friend’s birthday. Gigi. We were together in sixth form for a while.’

‘I think I remember her. Is she French?’

I almost say yes, because that’s how dysfunctional our relationship has become; instead of having a conversation with her, I field her questions by filtering out anything she might disapprove of.