I nod, a little taken aback. I’d have thought she’d have kept a few key pieces; after all, the business was a huge part of her life. ‘So what?’ Hamish booms. ‘This could really rev up some interest in you, Pen. Don’t you think it could be a real opportunity?’

‘An opportunity to do what?’ she asks.

‘To get involved, of course,’ he says with a barely perceptible eye-roll.

‘I don’t need to get involved with anything,’ she says tartly. ‘I have quite enough going on in my life as it is.’

‘But we’re only talking about a meeting,’ I say quickly, sensing things veering in the wrong direction. ‘You could really help out here. You’re a mine of information—’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ She purses her lips, and I decide to let the matter drop as Isla and I clear the table and we all make our way indoors.

‘Why are you so against this, Penny?’ Isla asks lightly. ‘Maybe we were being presumptuous, but Viv and I thought you’d love to be involved.’

She throws me a quick look and laughs dryly. ‘I very much doubt if I could help to turn around the fortunes of your museum, darling. That’s all.’

Disappointment settles over me as I fix drinks for everyone in the living room. In her red top and shimmery gold, knife-pleated skirt, Penny cuts an extremely glamorous figure tonight. I’m utterly baffled by her reaction. Perhaps she’s just content with pottering around with Bobby, and can’t see the point of involving herself with a faded institution?

Hamish beams around at us, flicking on the charm, the old let’s-face-it-I’m-still-terribly-attractive demeanour with the glinting brown eyes and manly jawline that brings to mind 1970s aftershave adverts. In truth, though, I’m not entirely sure about him – although he clearly adores Penny. Over the year or so that she’s been seeing him, I’ve heard all about his days as a highly successful composer of TV theme tunes. Anecdotes from his world travels and endless name-dropping pepper his tales.

It’s not the fact that he lives on a boat that makes me wonder whether he was as successful as he claims. It’s the fact that his boat appears to be held together by sticky tape and hope, and that I’ve been able to find nothing about him by googling. And if he was so renowned back in the day, why isn’t he still composing now? I haven’t mentioned any of this to Penny; it’s none of my business, and she seems to accept him as he is (and, as has recently come to light, maybe I’m not the best judge of character anyway).