‘Poor Mummy. Come on, don’t cook. Let’s go out and have supper together. We can drag Jack with us. Let’s have a family date.’

‘Are you treating us?’

‘Um. I don’t get paid until next week, it’s something to do with the accounts people. Can you lend me the money?’

I had to laugh.

Jack was sleepwalking through the last days of the school year. He spent most of the after-school hours at Audrey’s and in the limited time he did spend at home he either lay on his bed or glowered at the local bird population through his binoculars. He hardly ever spoke to Lola and me except to snap at us.

I telephoned Audrey and held out an olive branch. ‘Why don’t you come and have a family Sunday lunch with us? You’ve been so hospitable to Jack and Lola and I would love to see you here.’

‘Why?’

‘Well …’ Her lack of social emollience disconcerted me, but perhaps I usually erred on the side of being too conciliatory. ‘Because we would.’

‘All right. I’ll come on Sunday, then.’

I told Jack about the arrangement and he whipped round at me with fury glittering in his face. ‘Can’t you just leave me alone?’

‘It’s only lunch, Jack. You’re spending such a lot of time round at Turnmill Street I thought it was fair to invite Audrey back here.’

‘You just have to own everything, don’t you? You can’t let me have anything to myself.’

I tried too hard; Tony and Mr Rainbird had both seen that. But I had been balancing equations in my mind ever since Ted died, trying to work out via the past what the exact margins were between loving my son and loving him too much. I was tired of the battle with him, but I still couldn’t see how to care for him less openly while I had my different memories. ‘Okay. I’ll call her and cancel,’ I said.

I didn’t want to be vanquished by Audrey in any kind of contest, let alone one that centred around Jack, but I didn’t want him to see me caught in a playground squabble with her either.

‘No. Don’t be stupid. She already thinks you’re weird enough.’

‘Audrey thinks I’m weird?’

‘Oh, Mum.’ Jack sighed. ‘Just forget it, okay? Like you said, it’s only lunch.’

Sunday with Audrey kept its place in the diary.

I did some research into summer holidays. In the past we had been to a cottage in Cornwall, to Wales and the Lake District and, when we had a couple of fatter years at the Works, to an apartment on Skopelos and then a gîte in Normandy. This year, with the genie out of its bottle and all the smoke and scent swirling around me, I really did want to go back to Grasse.