‘Anyway,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, ‘that’s enough of your distraction tactics. You’re trying to stop me from focusing by talking.’

‘You’re the one chatting,’ I laughed.

‘Well, whatever,’ he smiled, nodding at my tiles, ‘let’s see what you’ve got.’

Just as I had thought, I did come in for an intellectual thrashing, but in my defence, I had a lot on my mind and with George continuing the conversation, I found it hard to concentrate. At least, that was what I kept telling myself as he relentlessly laid down one triple word score after another.

‘That was a good game, Tess,’ he smiled, once we had finished, ‘but I can’t help thinking you were a little distracted this evening. Either that, or you thought you’d let the old-timer win this one.’

‘Oh, definitely the second option,’ I laughed. ‘I just didn’t want to show you up, George.’

He laughed along with me and gave me a kiss on the cheek before picking up Skipper’s lead from where it had been secured around his chair leg, just to be on the safe side, and wandering off to say his goodbyes.

‘Where’s Hope?’ I asked Sam, who was stacking the rest of the game boxes in a pile on the bottom of the bookshelf.

I had felt a little light-headed when I stood up and realized that throughout the course of the evening, I had drunk more wine than I usually would and, because I’d had no reason to move, I hadn’t noticed the impact. Perhaps that was another reason why I had struggled to stay focused on those tiles?

‘She went a while ago,’ Sam told me, straightening back up and wincing as he did so, ‘she wasn’t feeling too well.’

I watched him rub his leg, massaging the area around his knee in particular. I don’t even think he knew he was doing it.

‘I’ll finish putting the last of these away if you like,’ I offered.

‘No, it’s all right. I can manage,’ he said, but he let me carry on nonetheless.

‘I hope she isn’t coming down with anything,’ I said, as I tried to focus on the task I had volunteered for.

I soon found that the boxes didn’t want to stack in as orderly a fashion for me as they had for Sam and I had to pull them all out and start again.

‘Are you all right?’ Sam asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s just a bit of a tight fit. Did Hope say what was wrong?’

‘Just a headache,’ he said. ‘But a bit of a thumper and it was rowdy in here tonight so I don’t think that helped.’