Then everyone laughs, as Granville doesn’t need to make any more money, he has just reached a plateau where he doesn’t really want to make any more money any more. He wants to do something else, a change of direction.

And there I was, thinking that it was invariably those who are most in need of psychotherapy who are most attracted to it. When I consider Granville, who is the sanest and most sensible man I know, I can admit it. I was wrong.

So I listen with respect when Gran tells me that he is doing a course at the Tavistock. He does, admittedly, use the word journey’, and the awful word ‘learnings’ without batting an eyelid. But most of all he talks about acceptance, and not trying to change the things that are beyond his control, which I take to mean, reading between the lines, that he doesn’t mind the fact that his daughter, the lovely, 22-year-old Serena, is in a relationship with the rumoured village rapist and recipient of Max Simon’s bullet, Colin Watts. My hunch is confirmed when, apropos nothing, Granville suddenly comes out with, ‘He’s OK, you know, Colin Watts. He’s OK.’

He is refilling my glass with San Pellegrino, while Virginie Lacoste, in a boat-neck sweater from which crisply emerges a white collar, gives me a cool glance. I feel faintly unsettled under her gaze.

Cath is struggling manfully with Mathieu, who may be a Nureyev when it comes to marketing L’Oréal hair products but with whom chit-chat rarely achieves lift-off.

‘I spoke to the police,’ Granville murmurs, for my ears only, ‘and it’s not at all clear that Watts was the culprit, mmm? It’s complicated. I can’t say any more, actually. It’s all a bit close to the knuckle, and we’re a small village. And Serena… well, she adores him. They always have adored each other, since they were kiddies.’

‘But who was supposed to have been raped by whom then?’ I ask, slightly ruining the moment, and tell Granville, doing a fair impression of the Darrrset accent of the publican, all about the time Garry from the pub told me with glee about how he didn’t mind a ‘spot of malarkey’ himself but that Colin had ‘had her both ways’, if I knew what he meant. Granville shudders at this, then describes Watts’ alleged victim, said she was an alternative type, lived in the eco-village, single mother, and herbalist.

All this is fascinating but I have to do my duty as a guest, and Cath’s being encouraged by Virginie – by this stage she is flirting with everybody, even the waiters and the wine bottles, with a naughty look on her face – to tell everyone about her plans for the farm shop.

‘You must tell everaybody about ze sausage, Catherine,’ Virginie begs. ‘Rarely, you ’ave been, ’ow you say, busteeng your bootay zees past few weeks.’