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hallway. He’s a rag-doll pirate dressed in black, with a rakish eye patch and a red parrot on his shoulder. They’ve been friends since the day Finn was born. The family live in fear of losing the wretched thing. On one cataclysmic occasion, Finn left Bob in the Reading motorway service station. He was inconsolable. Breaking into a cold sweat, I drove straight back—a four-hour return run—and prostrated myself tearfully before the extravagantly pierced youth in Burger King. Pierced Youth regarded me unemotionally, chewing the cud like a cow in the queue to be milked. Then he reached behind the counter and produced Bob. I could have kissed the boy. Actually—if I’m going to be honest—I did kiss him. He was mortified. I saw him using antibacterial handwash on his face as I skipped away.
    Now, his pirate safely buckled in, Finn snapped into his customary high-velocity state and sprang out of the car, leaping two-footed into a vast puddle.
    ‘Brilliant,’ I grumbled, as sludge splashed over both of us.
    He grinned unrepentantly and stamped in the water, uttering bloodcurdling battle cries. Keen-eyed and lawless, the child was a miniature version of his father. I recognised Kit’s intensity in the fine-boned face, Kit’s laughter and passion. Sometimes the look in Finn’s blue eyes was a little too knowing.
    Charlie was both kinder and more cautious. He did his best to copy Finn’s giant leap for mankind but lacked his brother’s agility. Predictably, he slipped and sat down—legs stuck out, jeans and red wellingtons submerged. Even his fair curls were sodden by the swell of muddied water that sloshed over his jersey. He sat looking up at me, bug-eyed, waiting to see whether I would go into orbit.
    Shaking my head, I gave him the thumbs-up. Then I scanned the garden for Ivan. There he was, perched with half a buttock on the swing, rocking himself on gawky legs.
    ‘Ivan!’ I forced a grin that actually hurt my facial muscles. ‘How nice. But Sacha isn’t here, I’m afraid. Just me and two feral boys.’
    He cleared his throat. ‘Can I have a word, Mrs McNamara?’
    I ground my teeth. First, I had asked him fifty million times to call me Martha. Second, Can I have a word? I mean, for God’s sake. Only policemen in really bad television dramas say that.
    ‘Come on in!’ I threw open the front door.
    Finn and Charlie were happily engrossed in their water world, squatting down and commentating animatedly. Ivan tottered awkwardly behind me, fingering his little beard. I threw a despairing glance up at Great-Aunt Sibella as I passed her in the hall. She was never one to suffer fools.
    ‘Tea?’ I switched on the kettle with an irritated jerk before opening the back door for Muffin, who was gazing through the glass, her nose button-black beneath the shaggy fringe.
    Ivan seemed completely tongue-tied. Perhaps, I thought, he’d come to murder me and feed me down the waste disposal unit. Now that would show hidden depths.
    ‘Milk?’ I persisted. ‘Biscuit?’ He managed to nod. Then he started piggling at his fingernails. ‘Sit down, Ivan,’ I barked, pointing at a chair. He sat. Poor boy, it takes a lot of misery to puff your eyelids like that.
    ‘Mrs McNamara,’ he said. ‘Um . . .’
    ‘C’mon. What’s on your mind?’
    He was clearly summoning his courage. ‘Sacha says you’re fantastic at your job. Your clients dote on you. All your colleagues come to you with their problems.’
    I raised my eyebrows. I had never heard Ivan string more than two sentences together. He rubbed the reddened eyes. ‘She feels as though the only person you’re not listening to at the moment is her.’
    ‘Well, she’s quite wrong.’
    ‘I thought she was joking when she first told me you’re emigrating. I actually laughed until I saw she was crying. I didn’t believe for one minute you’d do that to her.’
    ‘Ivan. When you’re older . . .’ My voice petered out. I was being patronising, I realised, in