Still, he didn’t want to take the risk. Rumour had it that’s what finished off Cyril at number forty-two. Poor bugger had only been retired six months when he keeled over one afternoon while watching cricket on the telly. According to someone at the post office, he was still in his pyjamas.

So every day Valentine woke up just before 7 a.m. After sixty-four years of getting up for work, he didn’t need to set an alarm. After putting on his dressing gown and slippers, the first thing he did was go into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He made it in the teapot, with tea leaves. None of this putting a teabag in a mug, like Helen.

‘Oh, Dad, I can’t do all that faffing around with a teapot – it’s only me,’ she’d said when she first moved into her own student flat and they bought her a teapot as a house-warming present.

It’s only me.

Valentine stared at the teapot now as he ladled in a single teaspoon of loose tea, just enough for one person. There was no Gisele to share it with him, to ask whether she was in the mood for Lapsang Souchong or Darjeeling this morning. The kettle boiled and clicked itself off. He reached for it and poured the water onto the tea leaves, replacing the lid to let it brew for a few minutes.

Who’d have thought it? Him, drinking posh tea. His old army mates would rip him to shreds if they could see him now. Back in those days, they used to brew up Tetley so strong it could take the varnish off the handle of your rifle. It was meeting Gisele that changed his taste in tea. But then she changed a lot of things.

Putting the knitted tea cosy over the pot to keep it warm, he set it upon the small table by the window, along with a china cup and saucer. The table was one of those with extending leaves, though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed to use them. Gisele used to love to entertain; she’d go to town, whipping up soups and soufflés and delicious-smelling casseroles, all polished off with a fresh tarte tatin and baked Camembert. He could see her now, standing at the stove like a conductor in charge of her beloved orchestra of orange Le Creuset pans, wooden spoon in hand, as they bubbled and steamed and browned under the grill.

They’d moved to Nettlewick when Valentine retired, away from the city and their pre-war semi on a busy main road, with exhaust fumes and lorries that shook their pictures on the walls. It had always been their dream to live in the countryside one day, but it was still a wrench to leave behind the home in which their daughter grew up and which held so many memories. Fortunately they found their new home warm and welcoming and soon made new friends, inviting them over for barbecues and dinner parties. It felt like a fresh start, in more ways than one.