Devan gave a dismissive shrug. ‘There was one thing that cheered me up, Connie, when things were getting on top of me at the surgery and I knew I’d have to quit,’ he said, completely ignoring her suggestions. ‘It was the thought you and I would finally have time, after all these manic years of work, to do stuff together – hang out with the family, go places, see things, meet people.’ He levelled his gaze at her, clearly on a mission to make her understand. ‘We’ve always wanted to do South America, the Great Wall … You haven’t even been to Australia yet. And little Bash, you hardly see him because you’re always away. He won’t be young for ever, you know.’

Connie frowned, her face set. She also looked forward to doing some of the travelling Devan was suggesting. But her summer tours didn’t preclude that. She was only away – sporadically – from April to October, which left five months free. What upset her now was the below-the-belt accusation about their grandson. She was the first to admit she didn’t see enough of him when she was working, but she tried really hard to make up for it during the rest of the year.

‘You’re not being fair, Devan. I never said I’d retire when you did.’ Stupidly, she’d come to realize, she hadn’t considered it might be a problem. When Devan didn’t immediately agree with her, she went on more gently, ‘Did I?’

He gave her a sulky look. ‘Maybe not as such. But I assumed, once I did, that you would too.’

‘We never talked about it, though, did we?’ Connie kept her tone reasonable, but his voice rose.

‘So? You’re going to keep on doing this silly job for the next ten years, just to spite me?’

‘“Silly”?’ She was hurt. He sounded like Lynne, her elder sister. Lynne was the one who’d been to college, eventually becoming head of admissions at Aberystwyth University, unlike Connie, who’d dropped out of school at seventeen. She always seemed to put patronizing quote marks round the word ‘job’, when talking about Connie’s trips.