Harry, too, had made the same journey south to see his younger daughter on a separate occasion in September, returning with a dazed smile of happiness on his face. It turned out that he and Frankie were both keen cricket fans, and she’d pulled a few strings with a sports-journalist friend of Craig’s to get them tickets to see Yorkshire playing Surrey at the Oval. They’d had a lovely time, even though Harry almost had heart failure every time he was told the price of a drink. Jeanie had been somewhat tight-lipped about the whole excursion, choosing to stay at home, no doubt to rattle through a few thunderous concertos on the piano, but she had agreed to let him go at least, rather than brandishing a rolling pin as she blocked the front door, so that was something. One step at a time.

Today Frankie had the slightly more onerous task of meeting the rest of the Mortimers all at once on their home turf, God help her. This meant not only being introduced to her three half-brothers and their partners and families, as well as Matt, Luke and Joe, but also, of course, the one encounter about which they were all ever-so-slightly terrified: meeting Jeanie.

‘It’ll be fine, Mum, she’s dead nice,’ Paula had assured her mother earlier that week, when Jeanie had called round, ostensibly to help make plans for the party, but really to have a little wobble to her daughter about the whole thing. ‘I know it’s a bit weird for you – the thought of Frankie being there – but she’s really easy-going and friendly. And there’ll be so many other people around, you can just stay out of her way if you don’t feel able to speak to her.’

‘Mmm,’ had been all that Jeanie had to say on the matter, before changing the subject.

Still, here was Frankie now, having been under the same roof as Jeanie for at least twenty minutes, with not a single raised word or finger pointed in her direction. Okay, so neither of them had actually broken the ice and spoken to one another – Jeanie might well not even have looked at Frankie yet, come to think of it – but it was early days, Paula reminded herself, cutting slices of cake and putting them onto plates. She glanced over at Frankie, who was currently talking to Stephen and Eddie on the other side of the room. She was wearing this gorgeous silky blouse, as blue as a gas-flame, dark jeans and boots, with her hair loose around her shoulders, and was laughing at one of Stephen’s stories. Paula grabbed pieces of cake for them all and went over to join the conversation.

‘Have some sustenance,’ she said, distributing plates. ‘Mum’s legendary chocolate-and-hazelnut meringue extravaganza: calorific joy on a fork. How are you doing, Frankie?’ she added. ‘Hopefully not too swamped by the noisy northern contingent.’