‘I think I’m just going to pop this down on the wall for a moment,’ murmured Giles, lowering the crate, ‘because June doesn’t do brevity.’

‘Well, good morning, everyone,’ said June cheerily on arrival, looking first at Kerry and then at Giles, before finally affixing me with a prolonged, but not unfriendly, stare.

‘Well, I wonder who this is,’ she said.

I smiled down at her, forcing myself to maintain eye contact and not be distracted by the ‘hat’, which I now realised was, in fact, a shortish wig, worn at a rather jaunty angle and therefore affording only about eighty per cent coverage of the snow-white hair beneath it.

‘This is Edith, June,’ said Giles, placing an arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. ‘She’s moving in today.’

‘In with you? Into your house, Giles?’ June let go of her trolley and clapped her hands together in obvious delight, beaming as she looked me up and down. ‘Look at those big brown eyes and button nose – like a doll. Lovely. Even in those clothes and with that hair.’

On balance, I was rather pleased with the compliment, but still unable to resist checking my red T-shirt and yellow shorts for stains, whilst tucking various loose strands of unwashed hair back into my ponytail.

‘How lovely! I always knew that you would find yourself a young lady-friend one day, Giles,’ said June. ‘And there was everyone else insisting that he didn’t want a young lady-friend,’ she continued, at barely reduced volume.

Unwilling to look at either Giles or Kerry, and refusing to dwell on June’s unmistakable emphasis on the feminine noun, I said, ‘Giles and I are cousins. He’s kindly said that I can stay with him while I look for somewhere to buy.’

June’s face fell. ‘Cousins?’

Kerry put a hand on her arm. ‘Step-cousins, to be precise, June. Isn’t that right, Giles?’

‘Quite right,’ he beamed.

‘Sorry, I always say cousin,’ I chipped in, ‘but we’re not actually related. My aunty was Giles’s stepmum.’

June nodded along, looking at each of us in turn. ‘Not actually related,’ she echoed.

‘That’s right,’ said Giles.

‘Good, good,’ she murmured. ‘Nothing against nature.’

I looked at Giles. He had gone decidedly pink.

‘Getting anything nice at the shops, June?’ asked Kerry brightly.

‘Brazil nuts and avocados,’ she replied. ‘Doctor McMasters wants me to put on some weight, but she doesn’t want me eating too many cakes.’

‘Ooh, I do love an avocado,’ said Kerry. ‘Nice in a salad, or you can smush it up and have it with a poached egg and bacon on toast for breakfast. Lovely.’

June adjusted her wig with two hands and zero self-consciousness. ‘Sounds delicious. I shall have that for my breakfast tomorrow.’ She returned her gaze to me once more and I braced myself for whatever new thought she might be about to articulate.