The man on the phone gave a low laugh. ‘You know, I think you’re right. Sorry to disturb you.’

‘No problem at all.’

Iris hung up and went back out into the living room, pocketing her phone as she did so. One of the armchairs was now in the window, bathed in sunlight. She went to try it out, and within minutes was basking in the winter sun.

‘OK?’ said Becky, smiling.

‘Oh, it’s like being one of those lizards in the heat lamps. You know, like you get in the zoo,’ said Iris.

From the kitchen they heard the click of the kettle switching itself off.

‘Tea,’ said Iris, going to get up.

‘You stay right there,’ said Becky. She went into the kitchen and poured the hot water onto teabags in mugs. While she was waiting, she thought she might just check her phone again. Maybe there would be a text. Actually, she might as well admit it: he wasn’t interested. But she’d still look. For the last time, she told herself. Her phone wasn’t on the table where she’d left it. Becky looked around – had she put it back in her bag? Coat pocket? It was in neither place. But there was Iris’s phone on the counter.

She picked it up, took it into the living room. ‘Iris?’

Iris opened one eye.

‘Whose phone have you just picked up?’

She pulled it out of her pocket, looking at it, bemused. ‘Well, mine, isn’t it?’

Becky yelped. ‘That’s mine!’

She quickly scrolled through the call history and saw a number she didn’t recognize. ‘Who was that person you just spoke to?’

‘Didn’t get his name.’

Becky’s heart leapt. ‘It was a man?’

‘Yes. Asked me out to dinner.’

Becky groaned. Immediately called back. ‘Hello? Adam? It’s Becky. You just called? My phone was answered by my daft—’

‘Who are you calling daft?’ Iris piped up.

‘. . . but adorable surrogate grandmother.’ Becky held her breath. ‘She said something about going out for dinner?’

Totally and utterly humiliated. That was the only way to describe how she felt. She’d decided early on not to throw in the towel because she thought . . . it seemed a long time ago now . . . but she’d thought it would get better or she’d get better. Instead, she was a panting, sweating mess on the wrong side of a 10–1 score – for the third time. And she suspected he’d actually let her win her solitary point as the ball had seemed to be heading for his racquet, but he’d mysteriously missed it. She’d started this match thinking she’d hold a conversation at the same time, perhaps find out more about what Adam did in his work, probe him about the stuff he could talk about in order to try and read between the lines about the stuff he couldn’t, but she’d barely been able to draw breath – and she considered herself fit. More than once she’d caught herself admiring a shot from Adam or the way he seemed to move from one side of the court to the other like a demented ping-pong ball.