‘Actually, yes, good plan,’ he said, equally sotto voce, his face clearing. Nance drank more than Mum, if it was possible. We met each other’s eyes and communed silently, both knowing exactly what we were talking about.

As Dad and I went back inside and shut the front door, it reminded me of shuttling young children backwards and forwards: not wanting them back too late, too over-tired, too teary. It also occurred to me, as I went thoughtfully back to the sitting room with my father, that annoyingly, for once, Helena had not been wrong. Dan was rather attractive.

When I went to collect my mother later, mysteriously I’d deemed it appropriate to switch my attentions to the bathroom rather than the kitchen. I’d scrubbed it to within an inch of its life, then myself. I’d also put on a clean pair of jeans, a rather attractive smocked top I’d bought in the Whistles sale, and washed my hair. Their house was only ten minutes away and I remembered the way from years ago: down this windy lane, then that one … right at the next, across the junction, and then right at the next sharp bend.

As I crunched up the manicured gravel drive so unlike our own, to the imposing Georgian façade, I wondered why Dan and I hadn’t overlapped much during our childhoods. Probably because he’d been away at school when I was little and was the eldest of three brothers, the youngest of whom was my age. Also, Helena and I tended to only deign to show up with friends of our parents when there were girls of our age present, like the Dugdales or the Frobishers, and by the time we all realized how short-sighted this was, we were away at university. But I did vaguely remember his youngest brother, Milo, who liked to play French skipping with me. We used to fix the elastic round a tree at one end, then round one of our legs, as the other hopped about. I reckoned Dan would be about four years older than me. I tried to remember what Helena had said about him. Single, I knew, but why? Widowed? Divorced? And did he live here on his own? Commute to London? Was he reattached? So many questions.