‘You’ve had a hard winter, what with the weather and looking after poor old me.’ She tried to make it into a joke. ‘You should go out together, before the baby comes.’

When she suggested it, it seemed very appealing. Douglas and I decided to go and see a show, eating out beforehand.

‘I do feel rather guilty about leaving her on her own,’ I said to him as we were getting ready. ‘After all, she’s had the hardest time of us all this year.’

‘It was her idea, though,’ Douglas said. ‘And we have had next to no time together.’

Brushing out my hair, I said, ‘You’ve been so patient, darling. Thank you for that.’ My voice sounded very polite. I often seemed to find myself being studiously polite to Douglas.

He cleared his throat. ‘Well, it won’t be for too much longer now, will it?’

I stopped brushing and spoke to his image in the long glass. ‘Have you heard more from London?’

‘Nothing definite yet.’ He was knotting his tie. ‘But it won’t be long I don’t think. And then we’ll be on our own again, won’t we?’

I tried to sound lighthearted. ‘There will be the small matter of a baby!’ But I felt desolate at the thought of being alone with Douglas, in a place where I knew no one, and with no Olivia.

Life without her here was becoming unimaginable. Sometimes, when Douglas came in from work, he would find us sitting together having already prepared a meal. Livy might be playing the piano while I rested or sat stitching frocks and coatees for the baby in soft white cotton. Now and then I’d look up at her back, loving the sight of her, absorbed in the music, her hair now gradually inching its way back to its original length and curling a little at the ends.

‘Your hair’s growing fast,’ I’d tell her sometimes, and she’d just shake her head, sending it frisking across her shoulders. She didn’t seem to care whether it was or not. I felt a warm, filling happiness at our being together there like that. Other times we sat on the couch talking or reading, Olivia resting her head on my shoulder, her hair soft against my cheek, our feet stretched across the rug towards the fire. And Douglas, walking into this scene, carrying the evening paper, hanging his coat while I fetched him a drink, would say, ‘Hello, girls. What sort of day’ve you had?’

And while he drank down a glass of Scotch, he’d tell us how his had been, bringing some of the outside world in to us. And I knew that in this routine, his finding me always here like this, he felt safe. He had me in the place where he wanted me: an ordered household, female and domestic.

That evening, as we left to go out together, Olivia was cooking poached eggs for herself.

‘I’ll eat by the fire,’ she said lightly. ‘It’ll be cosy.’ She turned, as if inspecting us, and came to straighten the neckline of my frock as if I were a schoolgirl. I kissed her.