‘Her parents were Jewish and had escaped persecution in Spain under Franco. My grandmother was a Communist, as a direct reaction to Fascism, I suppose. My mother was young when her own mother died and she became obsessed with reading up about Communism, though I don’t think she was ever convinced. So I think she transferred that interest to something more palatable; she became obsessed with Russian philosophy and culture instead. She took me to see the Bolshoi at the Royal Festival Hall in London when I was a child, and she sobbed the whole way through. I’ve never seen her so happy.’

‘She sounds impressive,’ Ivan said and she felt herself flinch.

‘She was,’ she said. ‘Just not that interested in being a mother.’

Gabriela felt a slight tightening in her chest.

He paused. ‘I think we would have had a lot to talk about.’

‘You would have,’ she said, allowing herself to be distracted from the comparison. ‘She would have thought you were wonderful.’

‘So she had good taste,’ he laughed, rolling her over so that she was facing him. ‘And what about your father?’

‘He was a maths teacher, a professor at the local college. He and my mother met at a student rally – a veritable cliché – but I’m not sure they were ever suited to one another. My father adored her, and she … I suppose she loved to be adored.’

‘They didn’t stay together?’

She shook her head. ‘They were always poles apart. You need something in common, don’t you?’

Gabriela felt her voice dry up as she spoke, the realisation taking hold. ‘You need more than a child to hold you together, to help you go the distance. Sometimes fondness, even love, isn’t enough.’

He watched her then and she spotted his cheekbone clench and she wished she could push the words back into her mouth.

When he spoke he said, ‘Life isn’t always straightforward.’ As he reached his hands towards her face and kissed her gently, any wariness she felt at the strangeness of his expression melted away.

Saying goodbye at the train station on Sunday morning, Ivan respecting her insistence that she take the train home on the basis that she had work to catch up on, she cried, the repercussions of what she had done, what she could never step back from, rattling through her as he held her in his arms. Or maybe she was crying because she had to leave.

‘Hey, what’s this?’ he asked tenderly, touching the tear rolling down her cheek. ‘Come home with me.’

She shook her head, urging herself to pull it together. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’ There was an urgency to his voice, a hint of frustration.

‘It’s complicated,’ she said and rolled her eyes in ridicule at the cliché. ‘No, it really is. I’m … I’m not in a position to start a relationship.’