‘Seeing the “For Sale” sign up, and then the “Sold”, I worked out that I’d soon have new neighbours.’ The casualness with which she said this belied the anxiety with which Carole had anticipated the new ownership. She knew that you could get lucky with neighbours as – she usually conceded – she had with Jude, but there were many other, less congenial, scenarios. So, as ever disturbed by the possibility of change, Carole had covertly watched the comings and goings of potential purchasers, marking them according to her own rigid scale of values.

Given what she regarded as one of the prime locations in the British Isles, Fethering High Street, the property took a surprisingly long time to sell. No doubt behind the delay were many stories of personal heartbreak, of buyer losing the purchasers of their existing houses, of mortgages refused after surveys, of moves being cancelled due to the start of divorce proceedings, and all the other myriad glitches in the English system of house purchase, the least efficient in the known universe.

So, she watched avidly, from behind her front-room curtains, for the tell-tale arrival of estate agents’ cars outside what was now called Wharfedale, but had previously been Cozy Cottage. And she rated her prospective new neighbours.

She was worried, on Gulliver’s behalf, by the couple who came accompanied by a Rottweiler. Also, the woman’s hair was styled in what was locally called a ‘Portsmouth facelift’, pulled back so tightly into a scrunchy that her eyes were narrowed. Though such coiffeur might be seen on the Downside Estate, it was totally unsuitable for Fethering High Street.

Then there was the family with five children. Cozy Cottage was far too small to accommodate them. Which meant that the children would spill noisily out into the back garden, before taking over the front garden and very soon playing in the streets like pre-war East Enders. The peace of High Tor would be shattered forever.

The less said about the couple who arrived on a motorbike, the better. The front garden of Cozy Cottage becoming an open-air repair shop, with oily engine parts scattered all over the scuffed lawn … it didn’t bear thinking of.

Nor was Carole much keener on the pair who came in a Rolls-Royce. Her upbringing had taught her that one of the worst sins in the middle-class lexicon was ‘showing off’.

No, in fact she reckoned she’d got off quite lightly with Adrian Greenford.

‘Would you like to come in?’ he asked, standing at the gate of Wharfedale.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Come and meet Gwyneth.’

‘Oh.’ It was the last thing she wanted to do. Having just decided that her association with Adrian was going to be a Starbucks-specific one, she didn’t want to go back on that so soon. Besides, her right knee was causing her pain and she couldn’t wait to rest it in her sitting-room armchair at High Tor.