Isobel found her in the comfortable, cluttered library, a room with few concessions to conventional ideas of interior decoration, but a fine example of what the French like to refer to as le désordre Britannique. Piles of books and magazines, leaning drunkenly like the Tower of Pisa at gravity-defying angles, were an obstacle course that needed to be carefully navigated. Evelyn was sitting in an electronically operated chair upholstered in a hideous dung-coloured stretch material, surrounded by gardening catalogues, her ancient West Highland terrier, Jock, stretched out on the rug beside her. Isobel gave him a wide berth as she went to greet her elderly cousin – Jock’s temper was untrustworthy at the best of times and particularly uncertain if he was suddenly roused from sleep. His wiry, theoretically white coat had acquired a yellowish tinge with age as though he’d long been addicted to nicotine and he wheezed as he slept like a pair of leaky bellows. An old Meissen chamber pot containing a bottle of Dettox spray was kept permanently on a window seat to cope with his unfortunate tendency to be sick on the carpet without warning. Jock was an inescapable hazard of visits to Evelyn.

‘Izzy! How lovely! Forgive me if I don’t get up. This marvellous new contraption ejects me like a cartridge if I push the right button but I’m still a little wary of pressing it too hard. I’ll save it up for later when Hamish brings your group back, then he can field me if I get catapulted across the room.’

Isobel stooped to kiss the mottled cheek. ‘It’s so good of you to let them come, Evie. I know Hamish will give them a marvellous afternoon but oh, how I wish you could go out with them too! Tell me how you really are? How’s the pain?’

‘Oh, not too bad – it varies a bit. Luckily I’m almost entirely synthetic anyway. Not much of the original frame left now, but thank God for all these wonderful spare parts. I’m hoping they’re going to redo my right knee again soon. Put another log on the fire, darling, and then make yourself comfortable.’

Isobel perched on the wide club-fender. ‘If I was dropped into this room blindfold, I’d always know exactly where I was,’ she said, closing her eyes and sniffing. ‘Azaleas and daffodils and wood-smoke; leather and old books and your special potpourri. It brings my childhood straight back – me lying under the piano sucking your treacle toffee and reading Lorna Doone and Jock of the Bushveldt and half listening to you and Pa arguing about everything under the sun after Sunday lunch.’

‘When you get old, people suddenly start agreeing with you – to your face anyway. It’s very dull. I do miss your father,’ said Evelyn, ‘and not just for the arguments.’