‘The ladybirds have gone,’ she adds. ‘They flew away home.’

‘I may need to get back to you on timings,’ I say, with a measure of diffidence.

‘Fine.’ She shrugs. ‘Well you have my number, Mr Huff.’

‘Yes I do, Miss Hahn.’

She turns and picks up her bike. She suddenly seems very annoyed, but why exactly I am not entirely sure.

‘You seem rather annoyed,’ I say.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she exclaims, piqued. ‘Do enjoy the rest of your afternoon.’

And off she stalks, red hands and all.

What a curious woman she is! So brusque. A suggestion – a mere shadow – of the Germanic in her accent. Unkempt. Chaotic. Not unclean, just …

Unattractive. Well, not unattractive. But boyish. Uncouth. And untrustworthy, too – possibly. Yes. And tragically repressed! Poor little thing! A hysterical virgin. Ha! Obviously. Obviously. Could tell that from a mile off.

3

Miss Carla Hahn

Shimmy is outraged by Mr Huff’s behaviour – so irked, in fact, that I almost regret telling him about it. I am soaking his gnarled old feet in a plastic bowl (the iced water scented with sage and lavender oil), while heating up some minestrone soup for a late lunch.

‘Zis Mr Huff has insulted us all!’ he exclaims, in typically exaggerated fashion (all shrugs, waving arms and eye rolls). ‘First ze careless assault by his drunken wife on poor Rolfie, zen zat monstrous “letter of apology” – a veb of deceit from start to finish; the shiksa vas driving at high speed you say?’

I nod. ‘Yes, apparently.’

‘Mrs Barrow tells me she always stinks of raw spirit!’ he declaims.

‘In her defence,’ I interject, ‘Mrs Barrow often confuses the smell of perfume with—’

‘Ha! Mrs Barrow iz nobody’s fool, Carla!’

‘And on the one, brief occasion that I actually met Mrs Ashe – Mrs Huff as we now know her – I did notice that she applied her perfume rather liberally. She was a quiet woman, very polished, well-groomed, sophisticated …’

‘Und now he haz insulted us all, en masse!’ Shimmy throws up his hands with such violence that the water in the bowl containing his feet starts to slosh.

‘Mind your feet!’ I say.

‘He questions za age of Rolfie? Oi! If he questions za age of Rolfie zen he questions ze integrity of your Mame! If he questions ze integrity of your Mame, he questions my integrity, und yours too, meine Carla!’

‘He simply said that—’

‘He’s calling all of us liars! Feh! Fardrai zich deyn kop! Pass me his letter again, bubbellah!’

I pass Shimmy Mr Huff’s letter. It reads:

Mr Shimmy,

Mrs Barrow informs me that the cat which my wife Lara knocked into yesterday was yours. We are so very sorry. In Lara’s defence, the light was poor. She reversed from the driveway in Mulberry Cottage (where we are currently residing) and out on to the road with considerable care and was horrified when she realized that your cat had failed to get out of the way. It had been lying in deep shadow. It is a very heavy cat, and not, I imagine, especially nimble, although it did run off at some speed after the incident took place. The tail appeared kinked, but Mrs Barrow assures me that the tail has always looked like that.