She held her breath, listening for his steps returning, but the house was quiet. Maybe that would have been it, a brief conversation on the shores of a lake in Italy if they hadn’t met again. If they hadn’t met again he might not have handed her a copy of Science and Health, they might not have fallen in love over it, he might not have said, marry me, and she might not have thought mother will be furious and said yes. Was it worth it? Would she have found it anyway? She would have done, if she’d needed it – Christ was everywhere and she needed it now. But it was Douglas who’d made it real, who’d said it was the real thing. If she hadn’t met him and had Fagus, if Fagus hadn’t fallen, if her mother didn’t hate her – there, there was the soft shake of his footsteps coming down. He’d sworn it was the thing. They’d fallen in love over its pages, its doctrine, its words of ultimate comfort. She heard him reach the hall, the touch of his footsteps growing hollow. It wasn’t the thing for him after he came back from the war. After the war he’d forgotten it entirely. She picked up her needle and thread.

He came in and collapsed into his chair. He’d removed his tie. He poured himself a second drink and took slow grateful sips as she held her embroidery and sewed another line.

On Monday, after Douglas left for London, she tied Fagus to a chair. It was an effort to lift him, his body heavy and resistant, but she was strong. She’d done it three times before.

“Put your arms around my neck.” She heaved and manoeuvred until he was sitting upright in the little wooden chair she’d dragged from the kitchen. The ropes she’d found in the shed; they were heavy, a little dirty, and not at all suitable, but the alternative was string or the ties from the sitting room curtains, and they were too short. He held his head well enough now, but his spine bent and swayed, and she had to support him with one hand while she wound the ropes around him. Next time she’d get a pillow.

“I know it’s not comfortable.” He was trussed like a prisoner, but he didn’t complain. His eyes, unseeing, looked right through her. “Now, Fagus, we have to pray together.” She knelt before him, her hand on his knee. “Dear God.” She waited for his small words of repetition.

“God,” said Fagus, his voice small and soft.

“Christ in Heaven,” Enid continued, “send down your love and heal this child, the sin he carries within him. We are servants of Your almighty love, in Your sight, let his be healed, let his body grow strong, let the sin pass from him.”