As the evening slid into night, the light from the kitchen spilling onto the patio, Aaron found himself in an awkward conversation with Genevieve. ‘Shall I go upstairs and pick up the stuff I left here? Or come another time?’ she asked, her eyes guarded.

Aaron tried to say the right thing. ‘Whenever suits you best.’

‘If you don’t care one way or another I’ll come back another time, when there isn’t half the village here to stare.’ She tossed down the last of her wine and muttered, ‘Bye.’ Before he could protest, she stalked off around the side of the building and into the night.

Nettled at how he seemed to have ended up in the wrong, he drifted over to the furthest corner of the garden, looking out into a darkness punctuated by the winking pinpricks of boats running under lights.

‘So Lee has a child?’ He didn’t need to turn to know who had spoken. He’d been aware of Clancy as she crossed to join him, her jacket fastened now, her hands in its pockets.

Behind them the party continued. Mick, Nick, Rick and Jordy were getting raucous and gales of masculine laughter rang out on the summer night. ‘Yes – Daisy,’ Aaron said. ‘She’s four.’

Her voice was stiff. ‘So somewhere in the second year after Alice left, Lee fathered a child. Despite his broken heart?’

‘They’re the basic facts,’ Aaron agreed carefully. He turned towards her, seeing the wariness on her face. He touched her hand, letting a couple of their fingers link. It felt important that he make contact, as if that would keep her there, listening. ‘When he was living alone in Northamptonshire, isolated from his family, friends and Nelson’s Bar, he did see women. Why shouldn’t he? Women like him. Alice had crapped on him.’ Mentally, he heard Aunt Norma sniffing, ‘Don’t say crap!’

‘Beth was a woman he saw for a couple of months,’ he continued, ‘but she got pregnant. It wasn’t what they’d expected but they had a go at making a family for the baby. It proved a rocky road. Beth never located her maternal side and when they split up she wanted Lee to have Daisy. He’s a good dad and he found a childminder and fought to keep her and his job.’

He paused, hoping she’d join the conversation.

‘Sounds hard,’ she conceded, after several moments.

‘It was,’ he agreed. She hadn’t unlinked her fingers from his. It made him think of another summer night in a different garden, when all his senses had been tuned to Clancy, the shape of her against him, her heat, the shoulders and neck laid bare by a summer top. With an effort, he brought his mind back to the present. ‘He decided to come back to Norfolk in time for Daisy to begin school here. He’ll get his own place when the sale of his house in Northants goes through.’

For several moments, Clancy said nothing. One side of her face was visible in the light streaming from the house, the other in shadow.