‘She has a friend,’ Corinne said, taking a step towards Beth and linking her arm.

Abi read the challenge in the gesture, but it was pointless pursuing the matter in front of the French girl, and besides, the Campbells would be there in an hour or so. There wasn’t time for confrontation.

‘Very well,’ Abi said, backing out of the room, ‘I’ll set places for you both at the table.’

She did her best to be magnanimous, ignoring the look of triumph that had come over Corinne’s face.

The Campbells arrived shortly after one. Little Jo brought his own transport – a wooden balance bike with racing stripes in red dashed along the sides – ‘his go-faster stripes,’ Becca explained apologetically as the boy charged through the hall on his little bike, the rubber wheel colliding with the Hollands’ kitchen door.

‘Whoa!’ Mark laughed, reaching down to right the boy, setting him back on the saddle and tussling his glossy black hair. ‘Easy, cowboy!’

‘Sorry about the bike. He insists on bringing it everywhere,’ Ross explained, pride in his voice, as he added: ‘He’s mad for bikes and cars. Anything with wheels.’

‘I wonder where he gets that from?’ Mark joked, referring to the row of cars that lined the Campbells’ driveway. Apart from Becca’s Golf, there was a 1973 Fiat 127, a Karmann Ghia minus its wheels, an ancient, mud-splattered Land Rover, a Mercedes and a small red Toyota bearing signage for a school of motoring. When the Campbells had moved in, they’d had the whole front garden bricked over to accommodate Ross Campbell’s car collection. At the time, it had filled Mark with dismay, but on this particular Sunday he didn’t mind so much.

‘Guilty as charged,’ Ross laughed, holding his hands aloft in surrender.

They went into the kitchen where Mark reached up into one of the presses for a tin box filled with animal cookies. In the past, he’d kept it stocked with treats for the girls, but they were beyond such juvenilia now. These days, he mainly kept it stocked for Jo.

‘What would you like, buddy?’ he asked the child. ‘Lion? Elephant?’

The boy chose a chocolate-covered seal, gripping it in his chubby little hand and rewarding Mark with a gummy smile, his eyes – crinkling with delight – disappearing behind their epicanthic folds.

‘Oh, he just gets cuter every time I see him,’ Abi declared.

In the months since the Campbells had moved in next door, never once had Mark or Abi heard the child have a temper tantrum. No screams of annoyance, no demanding shouts. ‘He’s even cute when he’s crying,’ Beth had commented once, observing Jo’s plaintive whimpers, big tears rolling over his rounded cheeks.

‘Full of energy too,’ Mark added as Jo began wheeling around the kitchen table.

‘Tell me about it!’ Ross joked.