‘I like you being pregnant,’ he said, putting on his seat belt, ‘it means I have months and months of you being the designated driver.’

‘Hey, don’t think it gives you a free pass to drink a keg of beer over lunch and then doze off in the passenger seat,’ she said, pipping the horn as a final farewell to her mother. Ellis was there too to wave them off.

‘A couple of beers does not constitute a keg,’ Tom said good-humouredly. He had to admit though, after all that good food, beer and sea air, a nap wouldn’t go amiss. Especially as he hadn’t slept well last night. Not with Martha tossing and turning beside him. But as much as he fancied a nap, he knew that Martha would want a post-mortem on the weekend. Experience told him that it was always better for her to unload sooner rather than later. So once Tilsham was behind them, and to fight off the need for sleep, he decided to broach the subject himself.

‘Come on, then,’ he said, ‘tell me what you’re thinking.’ He saw her hands tighten their hold of the steering wheel.

‘Not if you’re going to take that tone of voice with me.’

‘What tone would that be?’

‘The one that says you know best.’

‘This might be one of those rare instances when I do.’

She tutted.

‘For what it’s worth, the way I see it is you’re going to have to give your mother the benefit of the doubt, not just for her sake, but yours too.’

‘Benefit of the doubt,’ she repeated, ‘you mean leave her to make a terrible mistake?’

‘How do you know it would be a mistake for her to marry Ellis?’

‘Because she’s rushing into this without thinking it through. It’s as though she’s acting like a lovestruck teenager, allowing herself to be swept along in the heat of the moment.’

‘Isn’t that what everybody does when they fall in love?’

‘We didn’t. We spent time getting to know each other before deciding we’d definitely found the person with whom we wanted to spend the rest of our lives. We lived together first, to be sure of what we were getting into.’

‘That’s true, but I knew well before we moved in together that I wanted to marry you. And you know, maybe when you’re Naomi’s age and have experienced a lot more of life and how relationships work and don’t work, you know instinctively when you’ve met the right person.’

‘Or you panic and think this is your last chance and grab the first man that barges into your life before he gets away.’

‘Ellis doesn’t seem the sort to barge in,’ said Tom with a frown. ‘And don’t forget they knew each other a long time ago. They were friends then, so they already have a good understanding of each other; the groundwork has already been done.’

‘And how would you feel if this was your father rushing to marry some woman you didn’t know from a bar of soap? Wouldn’t you be concerned at what he was getting himself into? Wouldn’t you feel he was committing the ultimate betrayal of your mother?’