WHEN RUBY FIRST moves to town she stays with the Miss Wrights on Prospect Road, on the recommendation of her Aunt Maude. Aunt Maude is a frequent visitor, and if Ruby is spending the weekend in town, she joins them in the parlour for afternoon tea. The Miss Wrights have a horror of drafts, of catching a chill on the kidneys, but the atmosphere in the parlour – with the heavy drapes drawn to protect the furniture – is the closest of all. Occasionally a ray of light steals through a gap in the curtains, illuminating the room like a diver’s torch. Cat dander glitters and somersaults in the air like plankton.

‘I’ve been warning everybody for years to avoid tomatoes, haven’t I, Ethel?’ says the elder Miss Wright.