I glanced around, contrasting the limited light and space here with Giles’s considerably bigger kitchen-area extension, which ran across the entire width of the house to create a large, square single space. By force of habit, I found myself thinking about the ways in which Kerry’s kitchen might be transfigured to lighten the back room and provide her with more useable space.

‘The flowers are from your cousin,’ she smiled, ‘to say thank you for having Anthony last night. I told him there was no need. Harry loves him to bits,’ she said, looking down at the little dog now sitting at her feet, ‘and what are neighbours for?’

‘Giles loves this neighbourhood,’ I said. ‘Although, I think he rattles around a bit in that house.’

She nodded, holding up two storage tins, one labelled coffee, the other tea.

‘Tea, please,’ I said, pointing at the appropriate tin and then watching as she returned the coffee to a cupboard, the chipped door of which hung slightly on its hinges as she closed it.

‘Yeah, the house is a bit big for us too, now that it’s just the two of us. And it always needs stuff doing to it.’ I followed her eyes up to a damp patch and cracking around one the Veluxes. ‘But I wouldn’t want to move and mess Harry around, and we’ve got the Downs on our doorstep. He would really miss that. Plus, there’s stamp duty and moving costs, and Giles is right, the neighbours are great. I mean, some are nuts, obviously. Patrick is obsessed with parking, and poor old June literally speaks her mind – but they mean well. And that’s all we can ask of ourselves and anyone else, isn’t it? Best intentions.’ She picked up the kettle and poured water onto the teabags she had placed into a couple of mugs. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘Neither, thanks,’ I said, as she scooped out the bags, tossing them into a composting caddy.

‘Come and sit down,’ she smiled, handing me a mug and picking up her own.

Anthony and I followed her back into the dining room, Anthony flopping happily into his bed as he passed, and me taking the opportunity to look again at the photographs on the bookshelves. Two appeared to be recent shots of Kerry and Harry and the third featured a beaming, wild-haired man in an Aran sweater. He was standing on a windy-looking beach, one hand held aloft, waving to the camera as his dark hair stormed around his face. Friend? Brother? Ex-partner? I wondered. Possibly the latter, if they had parted on good terms. I made a mental note to ask Giles.

Walking to a pine table for four, positioned in a bay which overlooked the garden, we each pulled out a chair and sat down. A sofa and armchair, covered in throws of varying but co-ordinating colours, and a large wooden chest took up the rest of the space.