She smiled wryly. ‘Yes, OK, point taken. We’re both running away. But I’m running to London, Mum. To the exciting, humming Square Mile with a bumper salary and a whole raft of different, interesting people. I’m not sloping off to Little Snodgrass, or whatever that bonkers village is called.’

‘Sneaton, as you well know. And it’s not entirely sleepy. A mobile library calls once a week and by all accounts the church bring and buy is an absolute sizzler.’

Imo rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a lost cause. But don’t get too cocky and complacent, oh mother of mine. Don’t start taking up tapestry just yet. I’m not done here. I’m going to have a word with Grandpa.’

That was an error, if I’m honest, on the part of my oh-so-intelligent, Harvard Business School graduate daughter: to warn me. Because after she’d gone, to look at a flat – not to rent, but to buy, in Notting Hill, which made me so proud – I was fully prepared for my father when he rang.

I was in the car when I saw his name flash up on my phone, off, like Imo, to see an estate agent, but on a very different mission. I quickly put him on speaker.

‘I’ve just been talking to Imogen. It’s out of the question,’ were his first words. Again, no hello. What was wrong with my family?

I cleared my throat. ‘Au contraire, Papa, it is very much the question, and it has been for some time. But be that as it may, this is not about you and Mum, this is about me. I want to get out of this house, and I want to get out of London. I also want to live in the country, so why can’t I come and live with you?’

‘Because, as Imo says, you’re burying yourself. No one lives in the sticks until they’re decrepit, like us. There’s nothing down here for you.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m looking forward to some home cooking.’

‘Well, you can cross that off your list for starters. It’s become rather eccentric. For pudding last night we had incinerated baked apples covered in shaving foam which I’d left on the draining board and your mother had mistaken for cream.’

‘My point entirely. You need help.’

‘And my point is that we roared with laughter and had a choc ice instead. We are managing extremely well, thank you. Also, I have just forced a confession out of you. You are coming down to help, and not for your own benefit. I won’t have it, Lucy.’

He only called me Lucy when he was angry, but I wasn’t having it either. I was angry too.