‘It was.’ Betsy sighed so faintly that I barely heard her. Then she seemed to give herself a shake. ‘I always hankered after a large range cooker. Ted promised me one, but then decided we needed a quadbike more. He said as soon as we started making a profit from the wine we could have a whole new kitchen. I’m still waiting.’

A little alarm bell rang; did that mean that the vineyard had never made a profit? Or that Ted had always found something better to spend the money on? I decided that I wouldn’t ask those questions today, even if Betsy didn’t mind that I was nosy.

I remembered Marjorie saying something about Betsy burning herself and joined her by the kettle.

‘I’ll pour the tea, shall I?’ I said. The mugs she’d dropped teabags into were ringed inside with caffeine stains and looked like they could do with a good scrub.

‘No need.’ She took a small device from a drawer and clipped it on to the side of one of the mugs.

‘What’s that?’

‘Aha! It’s a magic alarm to tell me when I’ve poured in enough liquid. My eyes find it hard to judge the level of water. Stops me burning myself. Despite what Marjorie may think, I’m not an idiot; I do keep myself safe. You can pass the milk, though.’

I opened the fridge and a whiff of something off made me gag. On the top shelf was a half-eaten carton of peeled prawns which had a greeny tinge to them. The use-by date was last week. What should I do? Tell her and risk embarrassing her, or … let her smell them for herself? And what if she didn’t, what if she ate them?

‘I was going to have prawn sandwiches for supper, if you wanted to join me?’ said Betsy. ‘Hurry up with that milk, dear.’

The question startled me and I ended up slamming the fridge door harder than I’d intended.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, ‘but I’m planning on doing some reading this evening. Pippa said there might be some books on growing grapes you could lend me?’

‘Just a hundred or so,’ she said wryly. ‘I’ll find you some later. Come and watch my magic thingy.’

I watched as Betsy poured the boiling water into the mugs until the beeping noise alerted her to stop.

‘See,’ she said stoutly, handing me my mug. ‘Perfectly safe.’

‘Indeed.’ I wiped the hem of my T-shirt around the rim of the mug surreptitiously. I’d have to find a way of dumping those prawns in the bin, perhaps if she left the room …

‘Do sit down, dear, you’re cluttering the place up. I’ll find us a biscuit to tide us over. Should be a tin of shortbread in here somewhere.’