And Moira’s remembrance included her own resentment of Marianne’s behaving as if the unborn babe was hers too.

‘I seem to be seeing rather a lot of that pram’s occupant now he’s a teenager,’ Marianne said carefully.

‘You’re that sort of grandmother,’ Moira replied.

The thinly veiled innuendo did not escape Marianne. But Moira’s failing to see her own contribution to the situation was an all too human frailty, she thought while scanning the menu.

‘One thing I do remember, Moira, is your fondness for fish. That was why I chose Wheeler’s.’

‘But if you don’t mind, today I’d prefer steak.’

Nothing more was said until the waiter had taken the order, after which Marianne saw no alternative but to take a deep breath and plunge in.

‘Shall we agree to speak our minds, Moira? I seem to recall us doing so that time you stayed with Ralph and me. And my afterwards believing that it had cleared the air. But I was wrong about that, wasn’t I? Now, here we are, years later, with no more understanding between us than there was then.

‘I have tried my best to be the opposite of what I believe we then discussed. Jokingly discussed. The archetypal Jewish mother. But you weren’t joking, were you, Moira? I knew that at the time and took a good look at myself.’

‘In the caricature sense you’re not one,’ Moira replied.

‘Thank you for that.’

‘But there is nevertheless something about you I spent years of my marriage to your son struggling against.’

Marianne went on buttering a roll. ‘Has it never occurred to you that the “something” you mentioned might be all in your mind?’

‘A preconception, you mean? I admit that I did have one. But it didn’t take too long for it to be confirmed. That’s your grandmother’s brooch you’re wearing, isn’t it?’ she remarked. But it wasn’t just jewellery that Sarah Sandberg had passed down. ‘Why, exactly, did you ask me to lunch with you, Marianne?’

Despite the sudden hostility in Moira’s tone Marianne kept her own even. ‘Well, let me put it this way. There has to be a reason for A.P.’s preferring my home to his own, and it isn’t my chicken soup.’

‘I wouldn’t call your providing him with a latchkey discouragement. On the contrary—’

The waiter’s arrival with their first course cut short the conversation.

‘You would like the black pepper on the smoked salmon?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Marianne.

Moira made no reply.

A moment of silence followed his departure and they went through the motions of squeezing lemon juice on the luscious-looking delicacy.

Marianne forked some into her mouth. It was delicious, but the food wasn’t what they were here for.