Doris hadn’t slept well and was now in a terrible fluster as she waited for John to return from the station where he was meeting his son off the twelve-thirty train. She’d risen at dawn and cleaned the bungalow from top to bottom before rushing into town to have her hair and nails done at Julie’s Salon in the High Street. Now she was anxiously watching the clock as her carefully prepared lunch sizzled away in the oven.

She turned the heat off beneath the vegetables, basted the roasting chicken and wished for the umpteenth time that she hadn’t insisted upon cooking here instead of them all going to the Officers’ Club as John had suggested. Her fresh hairdo was going limp in the steamy kitchen and her nerves were making her clumsy, so she burnt her finger on the roasting pan.

‘For goodness’ sake, Doris,’ she hissed, dowsing her finger in cold water, ‘pull yourself together. It’s just a late lunch.’

But it wasn’t just any old late lunch – it was a meal to welcome Michael home, and having decided she wanted their first meeting to be a private affair and not conducted in the full glare of the Club bar, she was desperate to make a good impression.

Glancing at the clock again, she saw it was almost two. She’d reckoned on serving the meal at half-past to give them plenty of time to have a quiet drink and chat, before walking home. But if they were very much longer, it would mean dishing up the minute they walked in the door. And that wouldn’t do at all. She wanted her first meeting with Michael to be unrushed over a glass of sherry, not while she drained vegetables and made gravy.

Doris checked that the small kitchen table was correctly laid, the cutlery polished and gleaming, the napkins ironed to perfection, and the glasses crystal clean. John had opened the red wine so it could breathe before he’d left for the station, and Doris had placed the new bottle of sherry alongside three glasses on a tray in the sitting room.

It was on occasions like this that she wished she had a proper dining room, for eating in the kitchen felt far too informal – if not rather common. She rapidly dismissed the notion, for it was opinions like that which had caused rifts with her sister Peggy and the rest of the family. Gone were the days of her big house in Havelock Road, with its two elegant reception rooms and uninterrupted views of the sea, and she was damned lucky to have a home at all. Peggy, whose kitchen – like their mother’s – was the heart of the home, had set a fine example, and if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for anyone. Should Michael turn his nose up at the idea, then there wasn’t much she could do about it.