‘Remembered I like it, has she?’ A moving moment for a man growing too sentimental with age! Surprised to find himself taking the pride in his family he did.

Nathan watched Carla toy with a lock of her hair, as she had as a child when immersed in thought. Around her neck was the silver watch-chain that had once adorned the portly frontage of her paternal great-grandfather, Sigmund Moritz. She had worn it at her son’s Brith, as Marianne habitually wore Sarah’s brooch.

Such were the mementoes people passed to their descendants, bric-a-brac of one kind or another meaningful to them in their own lifetime. Also the bits of themselves that Nature passed down. Abraham Sandberg’s colouring was still going strong in the family. And Nathan’s great-grandchild – well, nobody could say that David isn’t the image of me.

‘The London traffic is terrible!’ said Carla after crawling to the lights in time for them to change to red yet again.

‘That I can see for myself, love, but it doesn’t help me to get a preview from you about Bessie. Your telling me whatever you know could help with the detective work I’m here to do—’

‘It isn’t what I know, Grandpa, it’s how things seem to me – that Laura just got married to Jake and took it for granted that they and their kids would then live happily ever after. But family life isn’t like that, is it? Everyone under the roof is an individual with their own needs and their own thoughts. And I’m sorry for Laura now her bubble has burst.’

Bessie’s first words to Nathan after greeting him were, ‘If you’ve come to stop me from dieting, I’m not going to.’

Nathan began as he intended to continue. ‘I didn’t know you were on a diet, love. When your mum and I chat on the phone we have more important things to discuss.’

‘Well it’s all anyone ever talks about around here.’

Something would have to be done about that. Nathan changed the subject and followed Laura to the kitchen. ‘Taken any interesting photographs lately?’

It was Bessie who replied. ‘My mummy is too busy worrying about me to take photographs, and making cakes I won’t eat.’

About that too.

‘We haven’t been away for a holiday this year,’ Bessie told him while he and Laura were drinking the coffee percolated and awaiting his arrival.

‘It isn’t quite freshly made, Uncle,’ Laura apologized. ‘I forgot about the detour I asked Carla to make.’

‘My mummy gets absent-minded because of me,’ said Bessie.

Did Laura know what a shrewd little monkey Bessie was? No, anxiety had blinded her.

‘And we didn’t go on holiday, Uncle Nat, because I have to keep seeing my analyst.’