It’s the first time she’s seen him wearing a vest. The scars running down his arms and snaking across his chest, just visible when he leans forward, are a livid white, but he doesn’t seem concerned about anyone seeing them now – not since he and Maddison got back together, anyhow. Maddison’s on a shift at the Grain Barge, the floating cider bar where she and Nick first met, and where she still works when she’s not making her screen-prints. She’s couldn’t get out of it, she told Amy apologetically, but she’s going to join them in the evening for pizza and a pint of Green Gold over at the Railway Inn.

Lotte is swimming confidently, splashing the girl in the lane next to her with overenthusiastic sculling and kicking. Amy doesn’t care whether Lotte comes first or last; she’s just thankful that a year of swimming coaching has paid off and her children are no longer frightened of water.

Lotte pulls ahead, and now she’s neck-and-neck with one of the other seven-year-olds in the far lane.

‘Second place!’ yells Theo, and Matt fist-bumps Nick as if their daughter has won an Olympic medal.

‘That’s my girl!’ he says when she runs over, wet and out of breath, beaming at them.

‘Did you see me? I was so fast,’ she shouts, and Matt picks her up and spins her round, showering them all with chlorinated water.

‘Well done, Lotte,’ her granddad says, and Nick gives her a high five.

The children fling themselves on the rug and start rummaging through her bags, looking for snacks.

‘Where’s Chloe? She should be here,’ David says. ‘She often visits me, you know.’

After he had sold The Pines, he’d moved to a bungalow in a retirement village in Sandford, which was once part of the old railway station. Amy visits him once a week, but it’s a comfort knowing that there are carers on-call, who check in at least once a day.

‘She’s in Zambia, David,’ Matt says. ‘I’ve got some photos to show you.’ He switches on his phone and thumbs through the pictures, before passing his phone to Amy’s father. ‘She’s doing some voluntary work…’ Amy notices him struggling not to say, Remember? They’ve been told by the consultant at the Memory Clinic that it’s undermining. Matt thinks it’s PC-bollocks, but he’s doing his best. ‘At a school. Teaching kids English. God knows what she’s telling them. Her grammar is shocking and she can’t spell for toffee.’