‘Well, she doesn’t look so fun-loving now. In fact she looked completely wild-eyed and stressed out. As we found their coats and sticks, she was spitting to me about what a bloody nightmare the whole thing is. Jeannie and Dickie are in a converted barn in her garden, apparently. Dickie put her straight on that, though, saying it was his garden. Nothing wrong with his hearing, clearly.’

‘Oh yes, she and her new boyfriend are in the big house now.’

‘Yes, but she said that, frankly, it’s a poisoned chalice. Worse than having teenagers. All they do is enjoy themselves whilst she ferries them from pillar to post and clears up after them. Sounds familiar?’

‘But they can’t have fun all the time, surely? They’re too incapacitated for that,’ Helena said, irritated.

‘Well, that’s the thing. Apart from the physical side of things, they’re all on sparkling form in the marbles department. Honestly, Hels, even Mum gave a very spirited defence of Boris over lunch. All horribly politically incorrect, of course, about how she couldn’t care how many love children he had running around as long as he was up to running the country, and how girls these days should grow up about having their bottoms pinched because she’d lost count of the times she’d been chased round tables or ducked out of a lift when she realized who she was getting in with. Imo would have had a fit. Especially when Dickie kept patting my knee and telling me sympathetically I’d be fine, soon, and that they’d find me a nice young man. They were making a fuss of me, Hels, hoping I’d be all right.’

She went quiet. ‘Perhaps you hit a good day.’

‘I’m not so sure. When I asked Mum later about the little Waitrose incident, she said; “But I simply forgot, Luce. I was miles away. Haven’t you ever done that?” And I had to admit, I had.’

‘What, stolen from Waitrose?’

‘No, but got to the door and the alarm’s gone off. I was at the self-service when I did it, filling my straw basket, baguette on top in a rather picturesque manner. I think in my head I may even have imagined I was in France. I must have forgotten to pay.’

There was a silence and I wondered if Helena had too.

‘Never!’ she snorted when I asked her. ‘I was just wondering if you’d inherited some of Mum’s loopy genes!’

It was my time to be quiet. Helena found Mum’s charm and eccentricity intensely irritating.

‘So what are you saying?’ she asked brusquely. ‘You don’t need to be there?’

‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that even this short amount of time with them has shown me they’re not incapable.’

‘Fish fingers for lunch!’