He sighed. Pippa’s parents putting her on a pedestal had always been tricky but was no longer his worry. ‘Why don’t you call them up and tell them that you’re pregnant?’ he suggested as sympathetically as he could manage. ‘Tell them it wasn’t planned but you’re happy. You’re thirty-four, Pippa. Not fourteen.’

With one last reproachful look, Pippa turned away. The desolate droop to her shoulders twanged his conscience and he called after her, ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine once they get over the shock.’

Relieved that he was free to head to his spray shop, he gathered his things, reflecting that he seemed to have had a close shave with Pippa. In the past, his steadiness had balanced out her irrational side. Devoid of that emotional ballast, she was behaving unreasonably. Suppose they’d succeeded in starting a family when they’d wanted one? Would she ever have been able to put a child first? Cope with sleepless nights and soiled baby clothes? That now seemed a fantastical notion. Grady would have ended up with the lion’s share of the parenting … although he didn’t think he would have minded.

A moment’s sorrow arrowed through him. He would never be a parent, and neither would Laurel, from what she’d said. He took a deep breath of the wintry air and came up with a positive.

Look what they’d save on condoms.

It was a shock when, only an hour later Pippa’s sister Zelda walked into Grady’s spray shop. He’d been carefully brushing in a turquoise background for a seascape on the bonnet of a black and white 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket, trying not to dwell too much on his part in devaluing such a classic by the addition of an octopus and several star fish. He’d just muttered to himself, ‘The customer gets what the customer wants,’ when Zelda’s voice rang out, making him commit the cardinal sin of letting go of the paint and air triggers simultaneously.

‘I cannot say how shocked I am,’ she snapped.

Grady, with a horrible feeling that he knew why she might be shocked, wiped his nozzle to prevent paint spatter when he got started again and pushed aside the booth screens before pulling down his mask. Overspray could hang in the air for hours and he was careful about breathing it in. He usually left the street door open for ventilation but now Pippa’s big sister had crept up on him he was questioning the wisdom of that. ‘Hi, Zelda,’ he said, thinking, not for the first time, how different she was to Pippa. No highlights or big hair for Zelda; no painted nails or constantly changing wardrobe. Zelda and Grady used to get on well, which he’d privately put down to them each being the quieter, more restful sibling in their respective families. ‘I’m shocked, too.’