“Well, dear . . .”—she placed her glass of sherry on the occasional table next to her and settled her elbows on the arm of the chair—“when I got back from looking after Millie and Nina, I went around to the flat of the chairman of the residents’ committee, and asked him when the next meeting was going to be, and he said that I didn’t need to bother attending it. I said to him that of course I had to be there because it was my job to make the tea and the scones and everything. And he said to me that because I had been away for so long, they had decided to appoint someone else to that position. And do you know who they have chosen instead of me?”

Dan shook his head. “Who?”

“It’s that dreadful woman Nancy Smith in flat 5F4. I mean, Dan, she can’t even butter bread, let alone make a scone, and”—she waggled a finger at him to emphasise her point—“and she has only been in her flat for six months.” She threw herself back in her armchair and shot a purse-mouthed expression at him. “Now what do you think of that? It’s a blooming scandal, that’s what it is.” She pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her jersey and dabbed at her eyes. “I have been usurped, Dan.”

“It sounds like it.”

“And now nobody will speak to me.”

“I’m sure they will, Mum. It’ll all blow over in time.”

“It certainly will not, Dan, my boy. It’s gone way beyond ‘blowing over,’ as you put it.”

“Why?”

His mother did not reply, but instead crossed her arms and pouted her mouth.

“What did you do, Mum?” Dan asked, trying to suppress a laugh.

“I took the one course that was left open to me.”

“Which was what?”

“I demonstrated.”

This time, Dan couldn’t help but laugh. “You demonstrated?”

Battersea Gran leaned forward on the arm of her chair again, a conspiratorial glint in her eye. “Yes, and I have to say, Dan, that I made a very good demonstrator.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I went down to the local shop and I bought one of those magic marker thingies, and then I made up this banner on a dishtowel that your Auntie Vi once gave me. I’ve never used it.”

“What did you write?”

“UNFAIR DISMISSAL. MAKING TEA WAS MY JOB in big black letters. Actually, I got the size of the letters wrong, so I had to write MY JOB on the other side and then keep turning it around.”

“So when did you demonstrate?”

“At the next residents’ meeting. I arrived in the hall just at the right time, between Item Three on the agenda—the foyer flower rota, and Item Four—the sanitation of the dustbin area.”

“And what did you do?”