‘I wouldn’t have found it,’ he says, pacing across the chequered kitchen lino in front of the sink. ‘I just happened to find it by chance.’

Claire tries to fathom out what she’s looking at and what’s made him so cross.

‘Just read it, Claire,’ he says sharply, and she feels a lurch in the pit of her stomach. She hates it when he uses that tone, like he suspects that she’s stupid. It digs right into the psychological compost of her mind, unearthing age-old insecurities, hard and as tangible as bulbs. Because he went to university, and she dropped out. Something he’s somehow never let her forget. ‘It’s an application for planning permission. Your friend Jenna and Rob are planning on extending their house next door. It’ll block out all our light. Not to mention the noise and the mess.’

‘An extension?’ Claire says, staring out of the window to the cherry tree. It’s on Jenna’s side, officially, although most of the tree falls across their boundary. They won’t cut that down, will they? She loves that tree and the robin she’s affectionately named Sam is on its bare branches right now. Claire wonders if the robin looks in on her, observing her life, the way she observes his.

‘Didn’t she mention it?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I think I’d remember a conversation about her wanting to put an extension on the back of her house, wouldn’t I?’ She can’t keep the resentment out of her voice. Maybe she is forgetful, but not about something like this.

‘That’s why she’s been so nice to you.’ Pim wags his finger, as if he’s puzzled something clever out. ‘That whole swimming thing. She’s just trying to butter you up.’

His theory hurts. ‘I’m sure it’s not like that—’

‘It’s exactly like that. They’re just people who think they can take take take. I’ve put up with Rob clanking around at dawn on his pushbike for the whole of lockdown, but I won’t put up with this.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Claire asks, realising from the scorn in Pim’s voice that he’s just as envious of Rob as she is of Jenna.

‘I don’t know. But you’re not to see her until we’ve worked out our position.’

‘You can’t just ban me from—’

‘You’re not to see her. Do you understand me?’

‘But I’m going swimming with her.’

And, right on cue, there’s the ding-dong chime of the doorbell. Claire and Pim glare at each other.

‘That’s her,’ Claire says in a small voice.

She wants to defy him and go to the door to see Jenna herself, but Pim beats her to it. She shrinks out of view in the kitchen, wanting to cover her ears like she did as a child, when Da came home drunk and fought with her mother. She hates confrontation of any sort and this is making her feel horribly queasy.

Pim and Jenna are talking and then she hears Pim’s tone change.

‘Yeah, well, she’s not coming now,’ Pim says. ‘Because of this. You think you can just slip this under the radar?’