He lay beside her on the blanket, defending the hamper from incursions by Chester and stroking the spaniel’s silky ears. There was something intimate about sharing this bed-sized space; he felt it too, she was certain. The heat had stolen their appetite and they could hardly do justice to the picnic. Out of respect for Margaret, Jean forced herself to try one of the spitzbuben, a pair of cookies sandwiched with jam, which attracted a trio of persistent wasps. Having dispatched these pests with a rolled napkin, Howard removed the remains of the food to the cool of the pantry.

“I may fall asleep,” Aunt Edie said to Jean while he was out of earshot. “But I expect you two will be able to entertain yourselves one way or another.”

Jean wondered if there was any undertone to this remark and looked up sharply, but the old woman’s expression, as far as it could be read behind its scaffolding of spectacles, was neutral.

“It’s a pity Gretchen and Margaret couldn’t come,” she said firmly. “They’re such fun.”

Aunt Edie stared at her. “Margaret is an angel, of course, but for all her charms one would hardly call Gretchen fun.”

She shut up smartly as Howard reappeared and closed her eyes. Jean thought she must be shamming, but within seconds a faint purring came from her parted lips.

“I see you’ve been keeping Auntie entertained,” said Howard, picking up one of her trailing shawls and draping it across the top of the sunlounger so that it shaded her face.

“She was finding me scintillating company right up to the point where she fell asleep,” Jean replied, fanning herself with Gretchen’s hat. There was no breeze and the air was like molten metal.

“Let’s find some shade,” Howard suggested, helping Jean to her feet. “We could play tennis if it was a bit cooler, but I think it might kill me if you make me run around like you did on the badminton court.”

“I seem to remember I was the one doing the running.”

“The return match is very much overdue.”

They walked between the fruit trees to the far end of the garden, past the shorn rectangle of tennis court, marked out with white paint.

“Who laid this out?” Jean wondered aloud. “Not Aunt Edie, surely?”

“She has an admirer in the village called Wally Noakes. He’s about eighty but he does various manly jobs like pumping up her bicycle tires and mowing the lawn now and then, in exchange for . . . I don’t know what.”

“I do like her,” said Jean. “She’s very determined and spirited. She doesn’t play the dotty old woman.”

“I’m glad you like her. She’s the only blood relative I’ve got.”

“What will happen when she’s too old to manage by herself? Will you have her to live with you?”

“I don’t know. I suppose that would be up to Gretchen.”

Howard had clearly never considered the matter. Care of the elderly was a woman’s business, thought Jean, and not something men allowed to clutter their minds.