She watched him go off, with Rory skipping along beside him, overjoyed at the idea of seeing the two big ‘cousins’ he had only met so recently – especially Edward. It was a revelation to those who had only come up against Edward’s occasionally tongue-tied and frequently mysterious conversational approach to hear him playing with a much younger companion. For adults, talking to Edward could be like trying to solve clues in a crossword puzzle because he often chose to speak in a kind of code of his own making – fun if you knew the form and enjoyed playing word-games, but completely baffling if you didn’t. However, this never seemed to be a barrier with younger children with whom he could employ a fluency of speech and a fertility of imagination that sometimes astonished even those who knew him well. From their very first meeting he and Rory had established a bond, and Isobel had found it both touching and tormenting to hear the two of them – twelve years apart in age – playing together on such equal terms, each appearing word perfect in the unwritten script necessitated by their imaginary games.

Isobel wondered, as she did whenever Edward was about to encounter anything or anyone new to him, what he would make of their visitors – and they of him. Bunty, she thought gloomily, might be brilliant with him, as she was with Rory, who irritatingly gravitated to her side whenever he saw her. Years of dealing with small children had immunised Bunty against the boredom of the repetitive questions that were still such a part of Edward’s conversation too – but what of the other members of the writing group? How would they react to his archaic choice of language and amazing vocabulary; to his professorial style inquisitions or the occasional unsuitability of his chosen topics for discussion? What would they make of his obsessional behaviour and, as his twin so bluntly put it, ‘Ed’s general weirdness’? Edward could also take inexplicable likes or dislikes to people and usually made his feelings extremely plain, which, either way, could prove embarrassing.

With Edward you could never tell how things were going to work out: surprise was of his essence.