Adrian Greenford was a large, red-faced man, dressed that day in a tweed overcoat and grey trilby hat, which he removed to reveal thick hair grizzled like steel wool. He had moved to Fethering some weeks before. Carole was usually resistant to meeting new people, but she had pointed out to him where the eggs were on his first encounter with Fethering’s uniquely inefficient supermarket Allinstore. He had then introduced himself, and they’d bumped into each other more than once on the parade or Fethering Beach.

Adrian was one of those people, unlike Carole, who had no problem initiating conversation. He had the bluff, open manner of someone who’d never considered the possibility that people might not want to talk to him. His accent was from the North – he’d told Carole early on in their acquaintance that he and his wife had moved down from Ilkley – and she wondered if that had something to do with it. She shared the common Southern prejudice that people from the North were more outgoing. (In Carole’s lexicon, ‘outgoing’ was not necessarily a compliment. Its shades of meaning moved closer to ‘brash’ than ‘congenial’.)

‘So,’ she asked, ‘how are you settling in?’

‘Oh, getting there, getting there,’ he replied. ‘Place was a bit of a tip when we bought it. Fortunately, a lot of the work was done before we took up residence. The lift’s in, which is the main thing, but there’s still more to do with ramps and what-have-you.’

‘“Ramps”?’ Carole echoed.

‘Oh, silly me, I hadn’t told you. Fact is, my wife Gwyneth is confined to a wheelchair, so there was a lot of sort of adaptation needed to be done to the house.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Carole curbed the natural instinct to ask what was wrong with her. Though she doubted whether Adrian would have minded answering, it did feel slightly indelicate. So, she moved the subject on. Though they had met a good few times, the encounters had been brief and a lot of the basic background questions hadn’t yet been asked. ‘Are you still working, Adrian?’

‘No. Retired. You?’

‘Retired.’ It still caused an obscure pang to admit it. The Home Office had so much defined her life that she had never really found anything to replace it.

‘I was in the car business,’ Adrian volunteered. ‘Salesman for over forty years.’

‘Oh?’

Maybe he read some criticism in the monosyllable, because he went on, ‘Yes, a car salesman, like they make all the dirty jokes about.’

‘I didn’t know they made dirty jokes about car salesmen.’

‘Oh, come on, surely you must’ve heard …’ He looked at her face. ‘No, maybe you haven’t, Carole.’ He sighed, then chuckled. ‘Actually, it’s quite a relief to meet someone who doesn’t immediately go into a routine of car salesman jokes.’

‘Do most people you meet do that?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Most women?’ she asked incredulously.