‘Have you been to The Keep?’ Sam is asking Cara. ‘It’s beautiful around Staverton and Dartington. Totnes is great too. And the moor is really close. Fliss loves going to Dartington Hall. There’s the gardens and a café, and a pub and a cinema.’

Max has finished talking and is sipping his beer so Jack feels that he can intervene quite naturally in the conversation now.

‘Sam’s right. It’s beautiful. You should get him to take you over and show you around. There’s a great little cinema in the Barn Theatre. They stream productions live from the Met and the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre. Do you go much, Sam?’

Sam hesitates. ‘I do when I’m home. Films, mainly. Fliss goes quite a lot to the ballet. Hal’s not that keen.’

Even whilst Jack is talking he can tell that the positions are now reversed. Cara is surprised that he should talk so naturally about the opera and he looks at her, smiling almost challengingly, as if to say, ‘Who’s being a snob now?’

She picks up his challenge at once. ‘Are you an opera buff?’ she asks.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t call myself a buff,’ he answers. ‘But I love opera. I was lucky enough to have a very enlightened music teacher. She took our whole class to London on several occasions, and to Plymouth, too, to see the opera.’

He can see that Cara is struggling to come to terms with this but Max is more direct.

‘Seriously?’ he asks. ‘Schoolchildren? But opera is always so gloomy. So dramatic. And you can’t understand a word they’re saying!’

‘They have subtitles now,’ Jack tells him soothingly. ‘Specially for people like me and you who don’t understand Italian. Or German.’

He sees Cara’s involuntary smile and he looks at her. ‘And what about you?’

‘Philip loved opera,’ she tells him. ‘So I learned to love it, too. Some more than others, I admit, but in the end I got it.’

‘Favourite?’ he asks her.

‘Eugene Onegin,’ she answers at once, and he laughs, nodding agreement.

‘Well, you might be pleased to know that they stream a lot of it live at Dartington and the season’s just beginning. I’m about to book to see The Magic Flute. Perhaps you’d like to join me?’

There’s a tiny silence, as if nobody knows quite how to deal with this direct approach but Cara rises quickly to the challenge.

‘I’d love to,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’

Jack glances at Sam and Max, eyebrows raised, extending the invitation to them, but they shake their heads.

‘I think I’ll give it a miss,’ says Max, ‘thanks all the same.’

‘OK,’ says Jack. ‘It’s next week sometime. I’ll let you know the date, Cara.’

She nods, smiles at him and looks at Sam. ‘Sure you can’t be persuaded?’