Eleanor had been wearing a tea-gown decorated with emeralds as big as quail eggs, 1920s style, and knee socks. Griff had a frilly Byronic shirt on, gleaming white. They had been watching an old Marx Brothers comedy, but got bored with it. Eleanor had started flicking idly through the channels, complaining how drab and tedious and passe everything looked. (That, as it happened, had been their catch phrase of the moment – passe.) ‘Wait, what was that, Eleanor? Go back,’ Griff said. (He always called her ‘Eleanor’, never ‘Mother’.)

That had been his first glimpse of Corinne Coreille. It had been Corinne Coreille’s Palais de Congres concert of 1989.

Eleanor remembered her exact words. ‘Good heavens, is she still around? Just look at her. So passe, don’t you think? Orchids and absinthe and Shocking by Schiaparelli.’ She knew that was the kind of remark that amused Griff, but now he remained serious. He asked what the singer’s name was. Eleanor told him.

If only they had continued watching the Marx Brothers going on causing havoc and large-scale destruction in their habitual manic manner, the catastrophe would have been averted – or perhaps it wouldn’t have? Not for the first time Eleanor Merchant asked herself the question and pondered on the role of chance in one’s life and whether everything that happened to people hadn’t in fact been pre-ordained.

Corinne Coreille had been singing something heart-wrenchingly sad. So sad, it had made Eleanor laugh. It was one of those ridiculously melodramatic songs. (‘C’est toi qui partirait’?) She had asked Griff if he wanted another scoop of ice-cream but Griff hadn’t answered.