‘It was the ballcock of the loo. She had asked me to mend it. I saw her great bed in her room, the bed you slept in, desecration that. I thought it would be lovely to roll on the bed with Matilda so I – but she pushed and down I went. She laughed! Laughed,’ he groaned.

‘When was this?’

‘Several years ago. Since then I keep my place.’

‘But you love her?’

‘Yes. Silly, isn’t it?’

‘Depends.’

‘Of course it’s silly. She is mad. She wants to die. She does not want to grow old and clutter the earth. I love her. I would look after her.’

‘You would be old too.’

‘Ach! We would be old together but she hates old age, refuses it. She wants to push off. It is arrogant!’

‘What about her children? Can’t they stop her?’

‘Her children!’ Mr Jones held up a finger. ‘Louise, beautiful, married, two pretty tots, husband with money, lives in Paris. Louise, she is grand, she is the cat’s whiskers. She has a lover, all very discreet. Then there is Mark.’ Mr Jones held up a second finger. ‘A right bastard, a pompous pillar of the establishment, always at conferences. I read his name in the paper. Then there is Anabel. She is flighty, a tart, hard, beautiful of course.’ He lifted a third finger. ‘Ah, Anabel!’ A fourth finger went up. ‘Claud. The youngest, a cissy, a pouf. And none of them,’ Mr Jones thumped the table so that Folly barked and Gus honked, ‘none of them bothers to visit their mother.’

‘Perhaps she does not encourage them.’

‘True, but they should try. I visit my mother in Tooting and very boring it is too.’ Huw Jones laughed, tears leaping from his black eyes to flow into his beard. ‘She is so boring,’ he cried joyously, ‘but I go. She whines, she cries, she is lonely.’

Hugh laughed with him, pouring the water into the teapot, putting the pot on the table.

‘I constantly visited my mother.’

‘But you murdered her.’

‘I know, but she wasn’t boring.’

‘Tell old Jones about it.’ The black eyes stopped twinkling, the laughter died.

‘No thanks.’

‘Okay. So now we have an embarrassed pause while we think of something else to talk about.’ Mr Jones was huffed.

Making toast, Hugh asked, ‘And Tom, what was he really like?’

‘Matilda’s Tom?’

‘No, yours.’

‘Mine? An amusing man. Loved Matilda as well as he was able. I only knew the UFO side of him.’

‘And what was that?’

‘He had experience in the war, see? Brought people over from France in boats to the estuary here and in a little seaplane. So later he started smuggling, not very often, just now and then. He was a mysterious man. I think he did some work for that chap Matilda is staying with, but I’m not sure.’

‘Does she know?’