This happens to me quite a lot, recently. I think things, and then they just sail out of my mouth, unfiltered. Maybe it’s because I spend a lot of time alone and converse mainly with myself.

‘Well, only because of personal circumstances. The house itself I adored, and my garden is a triumph. I hope you’ll keep it going. Are you a gardener?’ I asked, seamlessly changing the subject.

‘Not at all,’ he said slowly, his eyes on me, thoughtful. He came to. ‘Although I suppose I could water things, if that’s what you mean?’

We were in the kitchen at the time, and he looked doubtfully out through the open French windows to the riot of tasteful late spring blossoms, mostly blue and white, bursting forth from every conceivable square inch of bed amongst a backdrop of elegant foliage. I sensed this was a man who didn’t stray outside at all ordinarily, unless to go to a library. His bookish countenance – books were practically all that he’d arrived with, in huge packing cases – and the fact that I’d discovered he was a lecturer at King’s College, plus the look of horror that came over his face as I handed him a pair of secateurs from the kitchen drawer, did nothing to dispel this.

‘Yes, watering would be great. But maybe deadhead too?’ I suggested gently.

‘Which is what, exactly?’ He looked nervous.

‘Just … snipping off … the dead heads,’ I said, hopefully not too patronizingly. Golly, a professor should surely have worked that out. ‘But not if it’s too much trouble,’ I added quickly. ‘Just a bit of watering would be perfect.’

In my mind’s eye I saw all my carefully tended exotics, my lovelies, my Madame Grégoires, my Albertines, my Constance Sprys, wilting and dead within weeks. But so what, I reasoned. I’d have another garden, a much bigger one, at my parents’. And there was only so much I could ask of a tenant.

‘Right,’ Josh had said shortly. ‘I’ll do my best. What do I do with the heads?’

‘Well, you either gather them in an attractive distressed trug in the manner of an Edwardian lady pretending you’re in rural Gloucestershire, as I do, or you let them fall in a mess on the ground.’

‘The latter,’ he said, looking at me with curiosity. ‘Do you always live in a world of make-believe?’

‘I used to,’ I said, thinking this was rather a personal question, but on the other hand I hadn’t half invited it. ‘But not any more. Now. Dishwasher, washing machine, heating, I’ve told you about. I think the boiler is self-explanatory. Is there anything else?’

‘Don’t think so.’ He stuck his hands in his overgrown coat pockets and looked around warily. It struck me he looked a bit lost, all of a sudden. I thought of his family back in France.