In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw Minnie quite so thrilled. Her whole body is shaking with excitement and her eyes are bright and she keeps glancing up at me as though to share the wondrous moment. Elinor looks pretty delighted to see Minnie, too. Her cheeks have turned a kind of almost-pink and her frozen face has come alive.

‘Well, Minnie,’ I can hear her saying. ‘Well, now, Minnie. You’ve grown.’

Minnie is delving in Elinor’s crocodile-skin bag, and triumphantly produces a jigsaw puzzle. Every time Elinor sees Minnie, she brings a different jigsaw puzzle, and puts it together while Minnie watches in awe.

‘We’ll do it together,’ says Elinor. ‘It’s a view of the Wellesley-Baker Building in Boston. My great-grandfather used to own it. Your ancestor, Minnie.’ Minnie nods blankly, then turns to me.

‘Mummy, Ladeeeee!’ Her joy is so infectious that I find myself beaming, and saying, ‘Yes, darling! Lady! Isn’t that lovely?’

The whole ‘Lady’ thing began because we had to keep Minnie’s meetings with Elinor a secret from Luke, and we couldn’t risk her saying, ‘I saw Granny Elinor today.’

I mean, they still are secret. This meeting today is secret. And as I watch Minnie and Elinor gazing at each other in delight, I feel a sudden fresh resolve. This rift is stupid and sad and it has to end now. Luke and Elinor have to make up. They have family together.

I know Elinor said something tactless, or worse, about Luke’s beloved stepmother which he was upset by. (I never got the exact details.) That’s how this whole argument began. But life can’t be about holding on to the bad things. It has to be about grabbing on to the good things and letting the bad things go. Looking at Elinor as she opens the jigsaw with an ecstatic Minnie, I know she’s a good thing. For Minnie, and for me, and for Luke. I mean, she’s not perfect, but then, who is?

‘Can I offer you some tea?’ A drifty girl in a linen apron and baggy white trousers has come up so silently, she makes me jump.

‘Oh, yes please,’ I say. ‘Lovely. Just normal tea for me, thanks. And milk for my daughter.’

‘“Normal tea”?’ the girl echoes, as though I’m speaking Swahili. ‘Did you look at the tea menu?’ She nods at a booklet on Elinor’s lap which seems to be about forty pages long.

‘I gave up,’ says Elinor crisply. ‘I would like hot water and lemon, please.’

‘Let’s just have a look …’ I start to skim through the booklet, but before long my eyes are blurring with type. How can there be so many teas? It’s stupid. In England you just have tea.

‘We have teas for different needs,’ says the girl helpfully. ‘We have Fennel and Peppermint for digestion, or Red Clover and Nettle for skin complaints …’

Skin complaints? I eye her suspiciously. Is she trying to say something?

‘The white teas are very popular …’