Once the tent was up, sleeping bags and other necessities squeezed inside, we built a campfire inside a firepit that had mysteriously appeared on the lawn after I’d asked Ebenezer if he was okay about us pitching a tent. Once Joan had taken charge of lighting it, we soon had enough of a blaze to crisp up the sausages that I’d pre-cooked in the oven.

We stuffed hot dogs with fried onions, mustard and ketchup, opting for greasy hands instead of plates, the butter from charred corn on the cobs dripping off our chins. This was followed by the requisite marshmallows, and mugs of hot chocolate topped with cream and chocolate buttons.

We didn’t quite manage to stick to the rule about feeling sad. There were a couple of moments when Joan fell silent, her gaze lost in the glow of the fire. I had to turn away more than once to swallow hard and pull myself together. Once Nesbit had wolfed down his sausage, he snuggled up close to Joan, as if sensing her melancholy.

Then the music started, the first bars of ‘Uptown Funk’ pumping into the garden, shattering the mood in the best possible way.

‘Oh no,’ I called, getting up and marching over to Ebenezer’s open window. ‘If we’re dancing, you’re joining us this time.’

‘You can’t make Ebenezer dance, he’s eighty-one.’ Joan giggled.

‘If he can mow the lawn, trim the hedges and build a rain shelter, he can move two feet in time to his own music,’ I replied, loud enough for him to hear.

‘A good point!’

We stood there, side by side, hands on hips until the door finally opened, which was such a long time the track had gone all the way back to the beginning.

‘Is this what you do in that cottage all day?’ I said. ‘Dance to disco classics?’

Joan bopped over and took hold of her neighbour’s hand, swinging it about in encouragement.

I shrugged off the memories of the last time I’d danced in this garden and proceeded to attempt the kind of moves an eleven-year-old girl deserves when she’s about to leave her whole world behind because her mum is seriously ill.

Within moments, the door to New Cottage opened and Leanne shuffled out, Peter bracing her by the elbow. Carole was right behind them, flinging her arms out and singing along as though the pain of the past fifteen years was a forgotten nightmare.

As Ebenezer’s playlist rolled on to the next song, we adjusted our dance partners so that Leanne and Ebenezer could sway together while Peter and Carole did some sort of complicated jive and Joan gripped my hands as we spun and hopped and jigged about until the sun had set and the bats came swooping above our heads.