Maria finishes chopping and washes her hands, wiping them on the apron pulled taut over her ample belly. She’s short and round and all soft edges, reminding me of Erika. I only vaguely remember what my nanny looked like but I do recall her essence – the rounded wholesomeness of her, her scent of home cooking and perfume, her exotic foreignness. Was she Danish? I can’t remember. But I know I adored her, that I only tolerated seeing her leave at the end of the day because it meant I got my parents back for a few short hours before another day started.

‘What are you cooking?’

‘A tagine, with chicken,’ Maria says.

‘Do you always cook for them?’

She shrugs. ‘No. Only sometimes. They busy people. Work and work. Julia ask me to prepare dinner if she know they not home until late.’

There are more than two million foreigners in Switzerland, I read on my phone last night whilst lying in the double bed of the guest room between cotton sheets with a thread count that would make my bank balance weep. That’s a quarter of the whole population. I wonder how it feels to make a life in a country that’s not your own; to arrive for a job and then stay for a lifetime. Do you always feel as foreign as I do now?

‘Why did you come here, Maria, if you don’t mind my asking?’ I pinch a carrot from the chopping board.

Maria smiles. ‘Is better here. I make more money. There was no work for us in Toledo, and a friend who live here offered Filipe a job.’

‘Filipe is your husband?’

She nods. ‘He is concierge for two apartment blocks in Montreux.’ She gets a tin of tomatoes out of the cupboard and selects two small jars from the rack above the hob. The heady spice of paprika catches in my throat as she shakes it into the hot pan. ‘And you? Why you come to be teacher here?’

‘I’ve taught in England for years,’ I say. I bite into the carrot, forcing nonchalance. ‘But I just wanted a change.’

Maria raises her eyebrows. ‘But this is only for the summer. What happens after?’