passing motorist calling the police, though, and soon the nearest patrol car – a dog handler, as it happened, complete with Alsatian named Troy – had found Dan’s abandoned vehicle. In moments they were out of their car and tailing Dan across country. Knowing his house to be literally over the next hill, Dan was taking the scenic route back to the village where, coincidentally, on that moonlit night, the entire population had gathered around the Christmas tree on the green to sing carols. All of a sudden Dan, in the shaky beam of his pursuer’s torch, in a pinstriped suit, briefcase flapping, ran hell for leather over the hill towards us, an Alsatian on his heels. As the handler shouted, ‘Get him, Troy!’ Troy did, and with his children watching wide-eyed on the green, Dan was brought down by his trouser leg, pinned until a back-up police van arrived, then bundled, limping, unceremoniously into the back of it.
‘Don’t think I won’t leave him if a scenario like that ever unfolds in front of the children again,’ Jennie trembled. ‘Everyone has their breaking point.’
The three of us were in a row against the Aga now – a common enough sight in this kitchen – hovering where we shouldn’t be, least of all me. Three women who’d shared a lot over the years, each with a few more lines around the eyes, each with a ubiquitous glass in hand.
‘I’ve done my bit,’ Peggy announced, coming back to join us. She tossed the empty plate on the side and resumed her place on the stool, lighting up again.
Four women.
‘Who’s he talking to?’ asked Jennie after a moment, craning her neck to peer next door. We watched as Dan tried to crack a nut which clearly wasn’t cracking.
‘Phil’s sister,’ I told them. ‘If I tell you she hasn’t laughed since 2006 you’ll know what he’s up against.’
Sour Cecilia, her plain, scrubbed face mystified, was on the receiving end of Dan’s charm offensive, a practised stream of anecdotal wit which he usually unleashed on pretty secretaries at work who’d lapse into fits of giggles.
‘I’d better rescue her,’ Jennie sighed, putting down her glass.
‘Do not,’ Peggy told her, staying her arm. ‘Do her good. She’s a pain in the tubes. I’ve already had two minutes with her. And your Dan’s going the extra mile as usual.’
It probably didn’t help Jennie that we all loved Dan.
‘And that, presumably, is the mother,’ Angie murmured, as an older, but more handsome version of Cecilia hoved into view.
‘Don’t let her see me!’ I squeaked, shrinking back behind Peggy. ‘I’ve done my bit. Hours and hours on the phone last week, and then a whole day down in Kent with the pair of them. I’m not doing any more.’
‘Good for you,’ agreed Peggy. ‘Your dad’s not one to let a mouth like a cat’s arse put him off, though, is he?’
We watched as my father, having returned from his drinks run to hand round gin and tonics with bonhomie, succumbing as ever to his urge to make a party go, sidled up to Marjorie, clearly of the opinion he’d met her somewhere before, which of course he had, at our wedding.
‘It’s Margaret, isn’t it?’ he boomed. For a small man Dad’s got a very loud voice.
‘Marjorie.’ She tensed, visibly.
‘That’s it. Weren’t you at the Gold Cup a while back? In a box with the McLeans?’
‘I was not,’ she said tightly.
He gave it some thought. ‘Didn’t we have a dance at the Fosbury-Westons’ once?’
Her mouth all but disappeared. ‘We did not. I’m Philip’s mother.’
It was pretty to watch. It all came flooding back to Dad. The wedding reception down the road at the country club where he’d greeted her jovially from the top step of that grand house, tightly upholstered as she was in purple silk, a fascinator on her head. A fascinator’s a strange little hat, and this one had a peacock perched aloft, but as he’d lunged to embrace her, the peacock’s antennae had somehow become involved in his buttonhole, which the florist had surrounded with some netted confection, so that her head became locked to his chest. A grim struggle had ensued: Marjorie silent, Dad hooting with laughter as he descended the step – which didn’t help, rendering Marjorie bent double. ‘She can’t get enough of me!’ he roared.
‘My fascinator!’ Marjorie had yelped, clutching her hat which was nailed to her head.
‘Why thank you,’ Dad had quipped back, eyebrows wagging.
Cecilia had finally rushed with nail scissors to part