The place was very quiet, with no signs of life anywhere. No radio played, no dog barked; there was no sound at all. Even the air felt silent.

‘She does know you’re arriving today?’ asked Ted. ‘I thought she’d be here to welcome you home.’

‘Oh, she’s here all right,’ replied Evelyn darkly. ‘She misses nothing.’

Evelyn stepped into the hall and walked down the gloomy corridor to the kitchen. Her sister Joan was sitting in a chair by the range, a newspaper folded open at the crossword in her hand. She didn’t look up when Evelyn walked in.

‘Hello, Joan,’ she began. ‘I’m back.’

‘So I see,’ said Joan.

‘And this is my friend Ted. He’s been kind enough to drive me and my things up from London.’

‘How do you do,’ said Ted, and held out a hand.

Joan regarded Ted with disdain and made no attempt to take his outstretched hand. ‘Is he the one, then?’ she asked, cocking her head in Ted’s direction but without making eye contact with him.

‘No,’ replied Evelyn, unable to keep the irritation from her voice. ‘I said. He’s my friend.’

‘Funny kind of life you lead, having friends who are men,’ replied Joan stiffly.

Evelyn rolled her eyes at Ted and sighed, as if to say this was what she was going to have to put up with from now on.

‘I have a perfectly normal kind of life,’ she said. ‘And now I’m going to make him a cup of tea. Would you like one? Sit down, Ted,’ she added.

Ted picked a chair as far away from Joan as possible and muttered his thanks.

Evelyn refused to let Joan’s rudeness fluster her, and she got on with making the tea, opening cupboards to retrieve teapot, cups and tea leaves, all still exactly where they had been when she left.

‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ said Ted.

Joan didn’t reply.

‘I’ve always fancied living by the coast myself. I had an aunt who lived in Margate. Used to visit when I was a nipper.’

Joan’s stony silence continued, and so Evelyn stepped in to help Ted.

‘You never told me that,’ she said brightly. ‘Is she still there?’

‘She passed over,’ said Ted, dropping his head and crossing himself, even though he was no more a Catholic than she was. ‘God rest her gentle soul. They gave her flat to the Cat’s Protection League in the end. Shocking waste.’

He was messing about now. Evelyn knew his humour and could spot it at twenty paces. He had obviously cut Joan as much slack as he was prepared to and was now wanting to have some fun. Normally, Evelyn would have played along, asking him questions so he could embellish the answers, but it would do her no good to upset Joan before she had even brought her things in from the van.