He remembered again how she’d said they didn’t have a TV, as well as his own early suppositions about her parents as hippies of some kind, a view that was only reinforced as Corinne revealed more of their strong views on sustainability and the pernicious nature of capitalism. This seemed to translate into shopping in vintage clothing stores and eschewing anything manufactured in the last twenty years. Mark remembered the flash of pity he’d felt for her on the day she’d arrived with her paltry belongings, her tatty flip-flops, and he felt a surprising lurch of recognition.

‘It’s not easy, is it,’ he said, ‘growing up in that type of environment?’

‘No,’ she admitted, her usual high spirits dampened. Then her eyes flickered up and met his, and she said: ‘It was like that for you too, wasn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘My parents were old when they married,’ he explained. His mother had been in her mid-forties when he was born – his father in his fifties. ‘The house I grew up in was very hushed. Making noise or raising our voices was frowned upon. We were encouraged to read or draw or make jigsaws. Other children were never invited into our house. I guess it must have been hard for my parents in some ways, but … well, it felt stifling and sort of loveless. And I did feel that we stuck out as oddballs. I took a lot of stick in school over it.’

‘You felt ashamed of them,’ Corinne stated, and her voice was soft, not judgemental. She seemed older to him in their conversation, more mature and considered in her spoken words, with a poise he hadn’t noticed before.

‘Yes, I suppose I did. Ashamed of them – ashamed of the house we lived in, the meanness and poverty of it.’

It was why his own home was so important to him – a sort of fortress against the old wounds of his childhood. On occasion, when he became agitated over a crack in the wall or fretted unduly over the risk of flood from the rising water-levels of a nearby river, Abi would lose patience with him, saying: ‘It’s only a house, Mark! It’s just bricks and mortar!’ Equally, she was scornful whenever he expressed concern about what the neighbours might think. But Abi didn’t have his insecurities. She had no understanding of what it was like to grow up as he had done. But now, Corinne sitting across from him with her understanding air, her gentle gaze, it occurred to him that of all the people in his household, she was the one person who did understand. She shared the same sensitivity, the same need to shrug off the shaming cloak of one’s childhood.

As if reading his thoughts, she said: ‘I think you and I are alike, Mark.’