She had thought that would end it but Connor had turned courteously to enquire, ‘Would you rather play Monopoly?’ There was a set in the games cupboard that came out in the Wet when there were often full days to kill. He must have seen it when Luke got out the card pack.

‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head. ‘Scrabble’s better, but that’s okay. I don’t have to play.’

Luke groaned. ‘Too slow, Tilly. We’ll be here all night.’

Sophie grinned. ‘You mean she’s got a better vocabulary than you. Scrabble it is then.’

Trapped, Tilly temporised. ‘Well, what about Take Two? That’s quicker, and good fun. Like a crossword but played with the Scrabble tiles. You draw your letters and have to use them all up before you get any more. When someone does that, they say, “Take two”, and everybody must. Every time a player uses all their tiles everybody gets two more. When they’re all gone the first one to finish wins.’

‘That’s a new one,’ Connor said. ‘Where did you learn it?’

‘My mum. We’d play of an evening when I was little, waiting for the boats to come in.’

‘You can’t have been that little if you could make crosswords,’ Luke objected, and she pulled a face at him.

‘Okay, so I was ten or twelve. And spelling was my best subject, smartypants.’ She tipped the Scrabble tiles onto the kitchen table as she spoke. ‘Turn them face down, then we shuffle them.’

‘So what boats were they?’ Connor asked. ‘Where’s home for you, Tilly?’

‘Here,’ she said. ‘But I grew up in Victoria at Mallacoota. Dad had an abalone licence. When I was a kid we always seemed to be waiting on him to come home.’

‘Ah. I’ve never had much to do with boats.’ He flipped tiles with his long fingers. ‘He still around, your dad?’

‘He’s got dementia,’ she said shortly. ‘Okay, we all start with seven tiles.’ She drew hers towards her across the table. ‘Turn them up – and go.’

It was as she had said, a good, fast game. For long moments the only sounds in the kitchen were groans of despair and the click of plastic being shuttled about, then Sophie cried triumphantly, ‘Take two!’

‘Jeez!’ Luke complained, he had only three of his seven in place but he took another pair then cried, ‘Hey! Hang about,’ as Tilly, who had got an ‘e’ and an ‘r’ in her pick added them to an already formed word and immediately said, ‘Take two,’ again.

‘Keep up, Luke,’ Sophie encouraged with a grin.

Sophie won that game and Tilly the following one. Matt smirked at Luke as Connor congratulated her.