‘I shall have to go to the house.’

‘Difficult. I’m wondering exactly what would be achieved.’

‘Some sort of answer,’ Serrailler said. The words were all but lost in shrieks from the hall, as Cat and Sam arrived home to be greeted by Hannah, and Wookie ran round and round in crazed noisy circles.

Supper was in the oven, Kieron and Simon had taken drinks through, Cat had raced upstairs to shower and change. ‘And don’t you dare say as much as half a word without me.’

Later, what Simon kept on recalling was Hannah’s face as she told them, the pride and excitement that made her glow as if in the theatre spotlight. He wished he could have captured it in a photograph, but it was too alive and changing every second like the surface of the sea, Hannah’s every breath registered on her features. Yet it took only a moment to give them the news.

‘OK, listen up.’ Everyone went still. ‘It’s something this guy has always wanted to do, it’s been on the back burner where I guess he keeps a lot of ideas, because other stuff always got in first. But finally . . . It will be different and all his own, and the librettist of course –’

‘Spit it out, sister.’

‘New musical of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

‘Wow!’

‘And I went through five rounds of auditions and callbacks and then I auditioned twice for him . . .’

‘And?’

‘I’m going to play Hermia, in the West End, from September.’

It was Wookie who got there first, making the room erupt with shouts and laughter, Wookie who had been lying on the rug at Cat’s feet, but who now leapt up, hurled himself onto the sofa and Hannah, and started to lick her joyfully, picking up the atmosphere on the instant and making her laugh and then cry, holding him tight and sending him into further ecstasies.

Simon watched, as proud and delighted as the others, as surprised and as impressed. But all the time, a shadow rested, just behind his shoulder. He glanced at Kieron, the only other person who might have picked up on it, but he was in the thick of a group hug, and when he moved away, Simon had to take his place and so that the shadow’s presence was known only to him, pushed down and covered over, but there. Still there.

Sixty-Four

It was breaking light and he was the first up. Even Wookie only half opened one eye and immediately closed it again.

Saturday morning before seven, a pale morning, the air mild, the surrounding fields misty. He met only one car all the way.

But when he stood looking about him, a hundred birds were singing.

The house seemed set apart from him and its surroundings, settled within itself, needing no one. If he went inside, it would accept him, if not, fine. But he could not go inside.