"I knew you couldn't fail," I told her, trying to keep the smugness from my voice. It vindicated my enduring love, you see, all these years. Made sense of my tremendous emotional hiatus. A peculiar warmth and light radiated through me. I was so grateful for her endorsement. I walked quietly beside her in the dark, waiting for her to go on. Willing her to elaborate and exonerate me.

"He has Peter's gentleness, which is lovely, and that same endearing way of never quite looking at you, but shyly asking all the right questions. And not in a practiced, nosy way, just in a genuinely interested way."

"I know."

"I even found myself talking about my mother's obsession with antiques, how weird is that? How she has to polish everything lovingly every day, as if with every layer of polish she adds more value. How everything in her life is a means to an end, never mind how you get there."

"What did he say?"

"He said materialism often got confused with joy, and he thought it was because some people lacked hope. He said he'd been guilty of it a bit himself. I said: 'that's true. My mother is the enemy of hope.’”

"Oh, you went deep."

"I suppose we did."

“Did you tell him about Edward?"

"A bit." She scratched inside her wrist where she had a bit of eczema. "Yes, OK, a lot," she conceded. "And he didn't even ask. I don't know why I did."

"What did he say?"

"He said sex isn't everything."

I stopped still. "Oh, you told him about that."

She shrugged. "You know me."

We walked on in silence. Our feet moved in synchrony for a bit. Sex isn't everything. Interesting. Illuminating, even, in view of our own sex life.

"But the point is," she went on, "we talked about me, and I'd so wanted to find out more about him." I gave this a knowing smile in the dark. "By the time I realized I'd monopolized the conversation and tried to talk about him, Janey had joined us." She made a face. “Sorry about that."

I laughed. "Oh, I wasn't hoping you'd glean anything, I'm just so pleased you liked him. I'm so tired of trying to explain my addiction."

"Yes, well it explains it, but it doesn't justify it."

I didn't comment. Didn't want to ruin anything by arguing. I liked what I had, what she'd given me. It was enough. I'd enjoy it later, in bed. We walked on.

"His relationship with Belinda is weird, though," she said. "It's as if he's always trying to protect her, to stop everyone from seeing what she really is. He constantly reimagines her."

"Yes, I know." Celia had cottoned on to this family remarkably quickly.