‘I hoped you’d admire my new rain gear,’ David said. ‘When somebody handed me a couple of dollars on the street a few weeks ago, I decided I’d better do something about myself.’

‘They didn’t Daddy!’ Laura said, scandalized.

He kissed her for answer and followed her into the living room where his two grandsons, Ben and Mike, sat hunched over a game of chess. They rose to greet him.

‘Don’t let me interrupt the game,’ he protested.

‘And miss the grand inquisition?’ Ben asked.

‘Oh, you are awful!’ Laura said.

‘Grand inquisition?’ David asked.

‘Don’t worry about it, Grandad,’ Mike said. ‘We’ve got her well outnumbered.’

In this household Laura would always be outnumbered if the boys’ male solidarity were joined by their father’s. But Jack almost always stood against them with his wife. Today he stayed at the edge of whatever game this was.

‘There are dark rumours about you. Grandad,’ Ben said, ‘and Mother’s determined to get to the bottom of them.’

‘Why don’t you let your grandfather sit down and have a drink before you start all this nonsense,’ Jack suggested mildly. ‘Gin on the rocks?’

‘Thank you,’ David said, sitting down gratefully.

‘Isn’t that a new jacket, too, Dad?’ Laura asked.

‘As a matter of fact, it is. Do you like it?’

Mike gave a low whistle through his teeth to express his approval. Ben took a lapel between his fingers and rubbed.

‘It’s very nice,’ Laura said.

‘One more clue, eh, Mom?’ Mike asked.

‘That really is enough, Michael,’ Laura said, colouring.

David looked at his older daughter and thought how young this affectionate male teasing kept her.

Jack came back into the room with a tray of drinks, gin for his father-in-law, glasses of wine for himself, his wife and sons.

‘First taste of last year’s plum,’ Jack said. ‘You’ll have to try it at dinner, David.’

Ben and Mike made elaborate show of the tasting.

‘A bit puckery, would you say, old man?’ Ben addressed his younger brother.

‘A bit green still,’ Mike answered through pursed lips.

‘It’s delicious,’ Laura decided. ‘I knew it would be. Those plums were dead ripe.’

‘It will get better still,’ Jack said, always the moderator of opinions.

David liked the number of projects this family shared, the vegetable garden, the wine making, and they were all ardent sailors. He could not remember a time when the boys weren’t friends. Perhaps it helped to have them so close in age, not a year apart, but each with his own birthday. How Patricia had doted on them, as if they did, in some measure, compensate for her own loss.

Laura slid back the door of the cabinet behind her chair and produced a large dish of salted nuts.

‘So that’s where they were!’ Mike said.

‘If I’d put them out earlier, there wouldn’t be any left.’