Barbara cooked a stew, then grilled some fish fingers for Jacob when he complained about the “lumpy bits.” They asked what she did in London and she explained how she helped run an arts festival, and it sounded fey and crapulous. So she told the story of the drunken newsreader they’d booked the previous year, and remembered, just a little bit too late, the reason for Barbara’s divorce and didn’t even manage a graceful change of subject, just ground to an embarrassed halt. So Barbara changed the subject by asking what her parents did and Katie said Dad had recently retired from managing a small company. She was going to leave it there but Jacob said, “Grandpa makes swings,” so she had to explain that Shepherds built equipment for children’s playgrounds, which sounded better than running an arts festival, though not quite as solid as she wished.

And maybe a couple of years ago she’d have felt uncomfortable and wanted to get back to London as fast as possible, but many of her childless London friends were beginning to seem a little fey and crapulous themselves, and it was good to spend time with people who’d brought up children of their own, and listened more than they talked, and thought gardening was more important than getting your hair cut.

And maybe they were old-fashioned. Maybe Ray was old-fashioned. Maybe he didn’t like vacuuming. Maybe he always put the tampon box back into the bathroom cupboard. But Graham did tai chi and turned out to be a wanker.

She didn’t give a toss what her parents thought. Besides, Mum was shagging one of Dad’s old colleagues, and Dad was pretending the silk scarves and the twinkle were all down to her having a new job after thirty years of motherhood and housework. So they weren’t in a position to lecture anyone when it came to relationships.