framing her little face with its button nose and those dark, earnest eyebrows – the only good thing that father of hers gave her.
I know I’m biased, but I think she’s quite breathtakingly beautiful.
‘Yes, I’m all packed,’ I say, and my voice wobbles a little.
Leena crosses the dining room to perch next to me, giving me a one-armed hug. ‘Is this my to-do list?’ she asks, looking amused as she scans the paper in front of me. ‘Grandma, are there … how many pages is this?’
‘It’s just extra information,’ I explain.
‘Is this a labelled diagram of the television remote?’
‘Yes. It’s complicated.’
‘And … Grandma, are those all your passwords? Is that your PIN?’
‘In case you need my emergency money card. It lives in the dresser. I can write that down too, if you like?’
‘No, no, this is more than enough documentation of your personal data, I’d say,’ Leena says, tugging her phone out of her pyjama pocket and glancing at the screen. ‘Thanks, Grandma.’
‘One more thing,’ I say. ‘I need that.’
‘Pardon?’ she asks, then follows my pointing finger. ‘My phone? You need to borrow it?’
‘I want it for these two months. You can have mine. And I’ll have that nifty little portable computer of yours, too. You can use my computer. This swap isn’t just for my benefit, you know. You need to leave your London life behind you, and that means getting rid of those contraptions you’re always glued to.’
She gawps. ‘Give you my laptop and phone for two months? But … I couldn’t …’
‘You can’t do it? Can’t you cope without them?’
‘I can,’ she says quickly. ‘I just don’t see … I’m all for a break, but I don’t want to cut myself off from all humankind, Grandma.’
‘Who do you really want to speak to? You can just send them a text message, can’t you, and tell them you’ve got a different telephone number for two months. Go on, we can go through now and choose the people you want to tell.’
‘But … what about … emails? Work …’
I raise my eyebrows. She breathes out slowly, cheeks puffing.
‘It’s a phone, Leena, not a limb,’ I say. ‘Come on. Hand it over.’
I tug at it. She grips tighter, then, perhaps realising how ridiculous she’s being, lets it go. She doesn’t take her eyes off it as I fetch my mobile phone out of the drawer of the dresser and turn it on.
‘That,’ she says, ‘looks like something from the Neolithic era.’
‘It calls and texts people for you,’ I say. ‘That’s all you need.’
I glance at the clock again as the phone gets itself going. Only three hours until my train. What shall I wear? I wish I’d thought more seriously about the question of whether culottes are ‘in’ now. I quite like the new pair Betsy let me borrow, but I don’t want to look decades out of date.
‘Is someone knocking?’ Leena asks, looking startled.
We sit in silence for a moment, the two mobile phones on the table between us. There’s an insistent tapping sound coming from somewhere, but it’s not the front door.
I huff. ‘It’ll be Arnold. He always knocks on the kitchen window.’
Leena wrinkles up her nose. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say testily, getting up. ‘There’s a gate in the hedge between my garden and his, and he seems to think it gives him the right to trespass whenever he likes.’
‘What an arse,’ Leena says airily as we head for the kitchen.
‘Shh !’
‘Oh, isn’t Arnold going deaf?’
‘No, that’s Roland, Penelope’s husband.’
‘Oh. Well. In that case: what an arse,’ Leena repeats in a stage whisper, making me snigger.
When we round the corner into the kitchen, Arnold’s face looms very large in the window. The glass is clouded with his breath, but I can still see his hawkish nose, straggly flying hair, and bottle-thick glasses. I narrow my eyes.
‘Yes, Arnold?’ I say, pointedly refusing to open the window. Every conversation is a battle of wills when it comes to Arnold. You have to stand your ground on every point, even the really insignificant ones you don’t actually mind about.
‘Those cats!’ he yells.
‘I can hear you perfectly well at normal volume, thank you,’ I say, as icily as I can. ‘You are well aware this house isn’t double-glazed.’ He’s always on at me about that too.
‘Those cats of yours ate all my pansies!’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I tell him. ‘Cats don’t eat pansies.’
‘Yours do!’ Arnold says furiously. ‘Would you just open the window or invite me in, so we can have a proper