By the time they were all in the house, Stephanie Gadd had emerged from one of the downstairs rooms, a woman in the vicinity of fifty, youthful, vigorous, dressed casually but punctiliously in navy blue slacks and a chiffon blouse. She had a string of pearls at her neck, which she turned and tangled in her fingers as she spoke.

‘Well done!’ she cried. ‘Did you have an awful journey? Tom had a B of a time coming down from London.’ She smiled at her son, lingeringly, then, without turning, gestured to the man behind her. ‘And this is Rupert, my other half.’

‘Really pleased you could make it,’ said Rupert. He grimaced and shook hands, squeezing hard as if he hoped to communicate dumb sincerity through the force of his grip, though when Larry squeezed back, much of the colour left the older man’s face.

Tom was asked to show Ella and Kirsty to the downstairs loo. The others were led into the dining room where an elaborate buffet lunch was laid out on snowy tablecloths.

‘Just finger food, I’m afraid,’ said Stephanie. ‘I don’t think people want anything substantial when the weather’s this warm.’

Alice was seated between Alec and Rupert. She would not be parted from her coat or stole, and sat in her place like the last days of a Hollywood starlet, or one of those women undone by absinthe in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting.

When Kirsty and Ella came back, Stephanie handed out the plates and invited everyone to help themselves. On Sundays they were very informal and she hoped that was all right. Rupert drew the cork from a bottle of wine and held up the bottle to the light. He said he belonged to a wine club – ‘nothing too serious, just some chaps’ – but they had been impressed by this red from Peru.

‘Just pour it, darling,’ said Stephanie. She made an elaborate female solidarity face at Kirsty, who did her best to return it.

At the window end of the table, Tom Gadd, still unbuttoned, occupied his chair with a kind of doomed elegance, toying with a slice of Parma ham, a stuffed olive, then, with a blatant yawn, excusing himself to make some phonecalls.

Alice sipped at a glass of mineral water but ate nothing. For several minutes towards the end of the meal she appeared to be asleep, but when Stephanie returned from the kitchen carrying a tray of sliced peaches and freshly made meringues, saying how sorry she was she didn’t have more, that it wasn’t more special, that it was just something to ‘fill a hole’, Alice silenced her, calling out in a voice retrieved with visible effort, and saying, ‘Please! Please can we see the house now?’