Letting Clancy go with a goodnight kiss didn’t hold a candle to taking her upstairs to his bed, but, after walking her out to the lane, Aaron went back indoors.

As Lee was still table-gazing, Aaron filled the kettle and spooned coffee into mugs. ‘All right?’ he asked, when he’d set down the mugs and sat down opposite his brother once more.

Lee answered drearily. ‘Alice living here again makes me feel as if someone’s tossed my life up in the air. I’d just got it sorted out. Bringing Daisy back to the village. I’d made up my mind to find somewhere to live in or around Nelson’s Bar, then suddenly … Alice. With a husband. I feel like running a million miles away but at the same time I’m fighting an urge to go and see her.’

Aaron’s heart sank. ‘You’ve never seen her since she left, have you? What would be your purpose in seeing her now?’

Lee snorted. ‘Beats me. Probably not to talk over old times and agree to be friends. It’s just … she was so beautiful and fun. I keep remembering how I felt about her. Urges can be bizarre.’

Even without bizarre urges, there were a fair number of possibilities, Aaron thought. Anything from committing murder to begging for another chance on bended knee. Immediate short term, his best course of action was to see if he could deliver his brother safely home. He yawned. ‘I want a word with Mum so I’ll walk along with you, shall I?’

Lee looked incredulous, obviously seeing through the thin excuse. ‘You’re seeing me home?’

Recognising that putting Lee’s back up and maybe destroying his trust wasn’t helpful, Aaron laughed. ‘’Course not! But I have to speak to Mum and Nelson needs his bedtime walk. And I have to be up early tomorrow.’ He took down Nelson’s lead and the big dog leapt from his basket, his whole body a-wag.

Lee argued no more. He rose from the table, his movements loose, and he had to pause to achieve the change of direction required to get through the back door. They ambled down through the golden light spilled by the streetlights in Long Lane, peeling off right into Frenchmen’s Way. Glancing left, Aaron thought he could distinguish which of the illuminated windows down the hill would belong to the Roundhouse’s loft. He pictured Clancy getting ready for bed – sliding out of her clothes and brushing her hair.

Lee halted so suddenly that Aaron travelled on a few steps without him. ‘I bet I can have a beer with Jordy. See you later.’ Lee turned and began to jog down Long Lane.

Helplessly, Aaron stared after him. He could scarcely order a thirty-four-year-old home. In the light from the street lamps he was able to follow his brother’s progress, relieved when he swung left onto Droody Road rather than angling right towards the Roundhouse, as Aaron had half-expected. Muttering an oath, he completed his own short journey and was soon letting himself into his parents’ kitchen where he found them seated in easy chairs at the end of the room, watching a small TV. They had an enormous lounge with an enormous TV but they generally seemed to prefer the everyday cosiness of the kitchen.