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biscuits with a large square hand. ‘Do you want to feed her?’ he asked Jessica, as her mother and Jack disappeared. ‘You can if you want.’
    â€˜No, thanks.’ She took a glass of squash and sat sipping disdainfully on the parapet, her legs drawn up, gazing into the distance.
    Tom tugged at the top of the packet, still clasping the hen. ‘You can change your mind if you want.’
    There was no answer.
    â€˜Right,’ said Robert firmly, reaching for the teapot, and as he did so Tom ripped the packet open with sudden, irritated force. The hen struggled; half a dozen biscuits, with thick pink filling, flew from his hands and broke upon the terrace.
    â€˜Honestly!’ said Jessica. She swung her legs off the parapet and stalked inside.
    â€˜Oh, come on,’ said Robert. ‘It’s only a packet of biscuits.’ There was no reply. ‘We’d better clear them up,’ he said to Tom.
    â€˜Sorry.’ Tom struggled to get off the seat with the hen.
    â€˜These things happen.’
    They bent to pick up the pieces, Tom with one hand, awkwardly, beginning to puff. Under his other arm the hen’s head made little anxious darts. ‘Keep still ,’ he said. ‘You can have some in a minute.’ He got up, dropping a handful of bits and crumbs on the table. ‘Now … here you are.’ He stood there, red-faced and hot, making offerings from the pile on his large, open palm: the hen pecked, and went on pecking. ‘See?’ said Tom happily. ‘See? I knew she was hungry.’
    Claire and Jack stepped out of the sitting-room on to the terracotta tiles. ‘The others are just coming,’ said Claire, and flopped down on to the swing-seat. ‘Where’s Jess?’
    â€˜Sulking,’ said Robert. ‘Do you want to –’
    â€˜No,’ said Claire. ‘I can’t be doing with sulks. Do pour the tea, I’m gasping. What’re all these biscuits doing everywhere?’ She looked at Tom and the hen, pecking eagerly now. ‘All right?’
    â€˜Fine,’ said Tom.
    Beside him, Jack said, ‘Let me hold her.’
    â€˜In a minute. Come on, henny-penny, have some more.’ He reached for fresh pieces, and then he stopped, looking suddenly blank; for a moment his hand hung in the air; when he moved it again he did so too fast, and a glass at the edge of the tray tipped over at once, obligingly, as if it had been waiting for this moment. Orange squash streamed steadily across the table and over the edge.
    â€˜Oh, God!’ said Tom. ‘Oh, God, what an idiot I am.’
    He stepped back; Claire moved her own bare feet.
    â€˜You’d better get a cloth,’ she said, not unkindly.
    â€˜I’ll get it,’ said Robert, moving towards the sitting-room, beginning to feel, now, a rising tide of exasperation. ‘Tom, do for God’s sake take that hen away.’
    And Tom, defeated, took her, slowly descending the steps to the garden.
    â€˜But I haven’t held her!’ said Jack.
    â€˜You can come down here and hold her if you want,’ said Tom’s voice from below. ‘I’ve still got her.’
    â€˜No, he can’t,’ said Claire. ‘Do let’s settle down. Sit down, Jack, you can do it another time.’
    Jack sat, grumpy. ‘Why should he hold her?’
    Claire passed him the last glass of squash, and reached for the teapot. Robert returned with a cloth and mopped all the mess away. Jessica came out asking: ‘Can we have tea in peace now?’
    And Frances and Oliver, looking refreshed, came out through the double doors after her, beholding the beauty of the terrace and the lemon trees, and tea awaiting them.
    â€˜How kind. Thank you so much.’
    Dusk had fallen, the mountains were dark. Lights from distant villages twinkled here and there; here and there dim orange rectangles shone.
    â€˜Solar power,’ Robert observed to Oliver,