After two weeks in the new house, Freddie’s car pulled up outside as I was reading at the veranda table. Freddie whistled, and I got up, moving forwards as he opened the door for his passenger. An elegant ankle appeared, then a perfectly formed leg. I felt my excitement rising until her mousy-brown hair; it wasn’t Sylvie.

The new woman was very small and slight, with a weak chin, small mouth, large nose and high forehead. She was wearing a fashionable drop-waisted silk dress and strings of pearls, and her bare feet were dainty. She was a carrying a pot of geraniums, and shifted them to the crook of her arm to wave at me in a friendly way. She looked a little older than Freddie, who seemed almost boyish next to her.

‘Theo,’ he said, ‘meet Edie, my wife. She insisted on calling on you.’

‘I’m the friendly one,’ Edie said, and flashed her teeth at me in a smile.

‘Theo?’ my mother called from inside the house. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Freddie,’ I called back.

My mother appeared in the doorway. ‘How nice to see you again,’ she said, shading her eyes from the sun.

‘You must be Jessie,’ Edie said. She held out the geraniums. ‘I’ve brought you these – you’re meant to plant them around your doorway.’

‘Thank you,’ my mother said, accepting them.

‘The smell repels the puff adders.’

‘Oh goodness.’ She looked down at the pot in her hands. ‘The agent never told us about that. Would you like a drink? I’m afraid William isn’t at home.’

‘Wonderful,’ Edie said. ‘We brought some champagne for the road, but I finished it a few miles ago.’

‘Please sit.’ My mother put the flowers down on the porch table and disappeared inside.

Edie grinned at me. ‘Freddie, I’m bloody exhausted,’ she said, lowering herself onto one of the chairs. ‘Can you bring me my cigarettes from the car? Would you like one, Theo?’

‘Does that repel puff adders too?’

She smiled again. ‘Good, you’re funny.’

Freddie brought her cigarettes over and she lit up. ‘They’ve all been talking about you non-stop, you know,’ she said. ‘Sylvie especially.’

My skin tingled the same way it had when she’d touched me at the races. ‘Is she still staying with you?’

‘They’ve just moved out,’ Freddie said.

‘Oh.’

‘They bought a spot nearby – fell in love with it. They’ll be building that for a good few months.’

I looked at the table, trying to hide my smile, but I felt it radiating from me anyway.

‘Here we are.’ My mother appeared again, with Abdullah behind her carrying four glasses of white wine on a silver tray, three full and one half-full. Behind him, Maud trailed, looking sleepy as she was introduced. The half glass was placed in front of me and I looked sideways at my mother, who nodded.