Oh God, thought Em, startled, was that actually a wink as well? Since when had her son shown the slightest bit of interest in girls? Until today she would have said that precisely nothing went on in his head other than football, YouTube, snacks and sleeping, but apparently he had turned into Casanova during the journey down from Cheltenham. Marvellous. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time in months, noting the faint fuzz of hair that had recently sprouted along his jaw, as well as how broad his shoulders were these days. Blink and your children changed before your eyes. All of a sudden, he was half-boy, half-man. All hormones, apparently.

‘Gross,’ Izzie was telling him in disapproval. ‘Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to objectify girls?’

‘Clearly not explicitly enough,’ Em said. Oof, Jack getting the horn. Now she was imagining torturous holiday romances, a Romeo and Juliet between the barn conversions (were there any balconies? She hadn’t spotted any) and fumbly first kisses. She’d have to have a serious chat with him about responsibilities and respect. About not being a git to the opposite sex, like his dad, moreover.

Casanova, still smirking, slid down from his perch and headed for the kitchen, with what looked like a new swagger in his step. ‘Well, this place suddenly got a lot more interesting anyway,’ they heard him drawl, before adding in his normal voice, ‘Hey, Mum, can I open these crisps?’

‘I wish it was just going to be us,’ Izzie said in a quiet voice, before Em could reply to Jack. ‘Here, I mean. I wish the others weren’t coming.’

‘What? Oh!’ Now Em felt a pang of guilt. And surprise too, not least because on their last summer holiday, to Snowdonia, Izzie had barely wanted anything to do with her or Jack. Every time Em had tried to drag her out on a day-trip or off on a walk, she’d resisted, saying she just wanted to stay in the house that day; please, did she have to go? ‘Really? But I thought . . .’

‘I mean, we don’t even know this George bloke. I don’t want to sleep in a strange house with a random man hanging around.’

‘I’m opening the crisps then, I’m taking that as a yes,’ Jack bellowed from the kitchen, but Em was too startled by Izzie’s words to pay him any proper attention.

‘I do know him and he’s not a random man,’ she replied, stung, ‘and he won’t be hanging around, either, he’ll be in with me, so—’