Audrey sipped at her wine, pursing her full lips as if she disapproved of the taste of it. ‘You’re pretty well set up here,’ she said, looking around at the overgrown garden and the rear wall of the back extension, which urgently needed repointing.

Her comment irritated me. But the dilapidation on my patch was, admittedly, nothing compared with the state of Audrey’s own house. I thought of the loneliness like a blanket at its windows and remembered that Jack and Lola and I were a family, even though we might not always function as such as smoothly as I wanted. I felt a spasm of sympathy for Audrey and consequent shame at my own possessiveness. If Jack kept her company from time to time, it was the last thing I should mind about. ‘We don’t have a menagerie in our garden, though,’ I said brightly.

‘Do you remember the cub?’ Jack asked me.

‘The cub?’

‘The first time we went to Audrey’s there was a fox cub.’ He was amazed that I actually didn’t remember.

‘Really?’ Lola was interested. ‘A baby fox? How cute is that?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I recalled too late. There had been a bundle of russet fur in one of the cages.

‘Well, Audrey fed him on milk and scraps and stuff, and he got bigger and bigger and really strong. We used to shut Jack and the other cats in the house and let him out in the garden, and he ran around and sniffed everything but he still went back in the cage every time for his food. Then we let the other cats out, except for Jack because he’s like the leader and the most threatening, and the cub was well big enough to stand up to all of them. There was some snarling and spitting and stuff, because they were used to seeing him in the cage and then he was out in their territory, but basically they left him alone. Then we decided it was time for Jack and him to go head to head.’

Lola was looking from her brother to Audrey and back again, and I could see her interest. ‘What happened?’

‘We opened the cage, right? And the cub came out and went straight up to Jack and sniffed him. Audrey thinks it was because he never had his mother to teach him what to be afraid of and so he’ll go for anything. Jack hissed and fluffed his fur up, right, like cats do, and the cub ran and Jack sprang after him and then they did this sort of fight and the cub nipped the back of Jack’s neck, behind his ear. You never heard such a noise of yowling and yapping. Audrey got them apart and the cub ran back in his cage and Jack sort of slunk into the house.’

‘One-all draw.’ Lola laughed.