Peggy had been the driving force in getting her mum onto an online dating site, backed up by Joni – who was a safe three thousand miles away in California and out of range of their mother’s stubborn resistance. In recent years Sara had shut down her daughters’ conversation about finding another partner more than once. But she knew, as she approached her sixties, that she would be cutting off her nose to spite her face if she continued hiding behind widowhood indefinitely, thereby narrowing her chances of having a companion in old age. Although she consistently failed to summon the image of sitting across the breakfast table from a man who wasn’t Pete.

Her daughter’s voice was suddenly serious. ‘Don’t go if you aren’t comfortable, Mum. Me and Joni only suggested the whole thing because we were worried you might be lonely.’

I’m not lonely, Sara wanted to insist. She knew, though, that wasn’t really the truth. Her own mother, Gail – a single parent after her father had left when Sara was barely two – had been dead for over twenty years now, and she had no siblings. She worked hard, she had her daughters and some good friends, as well as Pete’s mum, Margaret, whom she saw most weekends. There was, though, a barely acknowledged emptiness in her life, she was well aware.

‘I’m being a wimp,’ she said, making the decision. ‘As you say, it’s just a drink.’

‘Where are you meeting?’

‘Pelham Arms. His choice. I hope he got there early and nabbed a table in the courtyard. It’s been roasting here today.’

Sara said goodbye to her daughter and gave herself a final check in the long mirror on the cupboard door. Her light brown hair, thick and layered to just below her ears, was freshly washed. She’d also put on a smidgen of makeup: a bit of gold-brown eyeshadow Joni had given her for Christmas a few years ago – seldom used – and a lick of mascara. She’d been told her large, wide-set hazel eyes, along with her soft smile, were her best features. Pete had always called her ‘beautiful’, but she knew she wasn’t. At a push she might agree to ‘nice-looking’.

Now she settled her delicate gold chain necklace with the patterned disc – her initials SRT, for Sara Ruby Tempest, engraved on the back, a gift from Pete for her fortieth – and pulled the brush one last time through her already tidy hair. ‘Onwards,’ she muttered to herself, as she grabbed her bag from the hall table and stepped out of the terrace house directly onto the pavement.