I froze. Luckily, just then, it started to rain. Everyone got up and started to move indoors. Gina pulled her cardigan off the back of a chair. I said to her: ‘I’ll be off. I can collect the lawnmower later.’

Evan overheard this. As the children jostled into the living room he caught my eye and mouthed, Don’t go.

This sudden complicity made my heart leap. Aren’t I intruding? I mouthed back. He grinned and shook his head. Stay for lunch.

My desire for him welled up again, but just then he was claimed by his granddaughter. We were indoors now. He dropped to his knees and they inspected something she’d found on the carpet. I gazed at his bald patch, tanned as polished caramel. How did a vet become so sunburnt? Did he tend to cattle? Were there any cattle in Hendon? I knew nothing about this man. This beige suburban room was not to my taste, but just then I found my immersion in his family life an unexpected adventure. A risky one, but wasn’t that the point of adventures?

I wandered into the kitchen. Evan’s grown-up daughters were squatting at the open fridge door.

‘Bloody hell, we needn’t have brought any food,’ said Gina. ‘It’s quiche fucking central in here.’

‘They haven’t wasted any time, have they?’ Lisa peered at the labels. ‘Who’s Audrey?’

‘She lives at number six.’

‘And Mum not cold in her grave.’

‘She was cremated.’

‘Still, they’re probably just being kind.’

‘Huh. Like the getting-into-Dad’s-trousers kind of kind.’

They turned and saw me.

‘Can I help?’ I asked.

Gina climbed to her feet with difficulty. It was only then that I realised she was drunk. Maybe she’d spiked her own pomegranate juice.

‘We’ll have to eat in the dining room.’ She gave me two plastic bowls covered in cling film. ‘You can take these in.’

The dining room was empty. It was dominated by one of those formal, polished tables you don’t dare put anything on in case it makes a ring. I stood there, holding the bowls.

Gina came in, carrying a tray full of cutlery. She tipped it up; the knives, forks and spoons clattered onto the table.

‘That’ll do,’ she said. ‘They can help themselves.’ She pointed to the bowls. ‘Bung them down anywhere.’

She pushed back her hair. Her face was flushed, and sheeny with sweat. She was so thin that I suspected an eating disorder. Her T-shirt read: ‘I’ve Been to Disneyworld Orlando’. There was something about her middle-aged intransigence that reminded me of my own daughter.

‘So you knew Mum at school,’ Gina said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘At college.’

‘So you knew what she was like.’

‘Not really.’

‘What I mean is, don’t listen to anything Lisa says.’

‘What would she say?’

‘Just don’t listen.’

‘But she hasn’t said anything.’

‘Especially if she mentions the red pashmina.’ Gina ripped the cling film off a bowl. ‘Mum always said I could have it. It was an understood thing.’