As I’ve said, he always calls her mid-afternoon while I’m preparing supper and most of it is, as they freely admit, bollocks. He asks about Bertie (a character from Alexander McCall Smith’s Scotland Street series which she has become extremely engaged with, as have we at one step removed), about Escape to the Country (which is usually on the TV when he calls), the usual statement being “Where are they escaping to today?”, whether she’s been doing her exercises or been to Chair Ballet or had her haircut, what she had for lunch and then finally what she’s having for supper. A lifetime self-denier regarding food, she keeps to a narrow regime of favourites which rarely involves a pudding and definitely not custard:”I like Bird’s but this chef makes his own.” She likes smoked salmon, fruit salad and yesterday she went for a steak and kidney pie but mostly its soup and ham on brown. “I wanted chicken,” she told him last night, “but it had all gone so it was ham.”
