‘It’s madness down here.’ She’s buttering more toast. ‘I’ve got a friend whose mother broke her hip. She’s eighty-seven and they’re trying to send her home. Her daughter works in London. Her son’s in Dubai. She’s got no immediate family, so she’ll have to rely on her neighbours and people like me. She can barely move, poor thing. She should be in hospital for as long as it takes. Treating people that way is beyond belief.’

Mitch is looking sombre. His plate, with its puddles of tomato sauce, looks like a crime scene.

‘Tell our new masters,’ he says. ‘They’ve promised to deliver and now the bills are due. Will they sort the NHS? Social care? Of course not. Why? Because the math doesn’t work. There are too many of us, and we’re too old, and in any case there’s no money. Labour? Tory? Green? Yellow? Makes no difference. Even with his precious eighty seats, Johnson’s fucked, and he knows it.’ The sight of the toast puts a smile on his face. ‘Do I hear the word marmalade?’

After breakfast, Mitch and I retreat to the lounge. For reasons I understand only too well, he wants a proper briefing. Budleigh Salterton, once you get to know it, is a simple proposition, but every newcomer has every right to ask a question or two.

‘Blacks? Browns? Fat mums? Kids?’ Mitch, it turns out, took a drive up and down the High Street before finding the bungalow.

‘Very few of the above,’ I admit, ‘though the primary school seems to be thriving, and there’s a decent Indian if you fancy a curry.’

‘But it’s a time warp, isn’t it? God obviously had a passion for the Fifties and preserved it here. Did a nice job, too. Good choice of location. Great beach. No litter. All the dogs on leads, and most of the husbands, too. Aspic’s the word that comes to mind.’ He catches Evelyn’s eye. ‘Am I on the money here? Is this God’s waiting room? Or has London rotted my brain?’

I sense that Evelyn likes this man even more than last time they met. He’s brought a gust of irreverence to the tidiness of her little home in the west, and she admires a well-turned phrase. At first, the stream-of-consciousness that is Mitch rather alarmed her, but now she’s more than happy to give it house room.

‘You need a little time, dear,’ she says. ‘Then you’ll settle in.’