She heard a key in the door, Silas's rasping way of shoving it open with his foot, so that he did not have to put down the accoutrements of his trade, briefcase and computer. They stared at each other for a moment, Lydia in the darkened well of the house, Silas in the island of light at the door.

‘Lydia, you should not be walking without your crutches.’

‘I need to practise, when the stitches are removed I may find I've forgotten how to walk without those stupid things.’

She saw the unasked question in his eyes.

‘I need to find your sleeping drops, and a glass of water.’

‘I'll get it for you.’

‘A woman has to do things for herself, especially when the men of the house have abandoned her.’

‘Where is Mikey?’ he asked, bringing her the water.

‘Up in his room, I think.’

He sat down in a chair opposite her, measured out the prescribed fifteen drops into the glass. How imprecise homeopaths are! She sipped, grimacing at the slightly bitter taste, glanced up at him, hating him for having intruded, but relieved that he had arrived at such a crucial moment, before she had started her journey up those stairs. No, it was not the prospect of the embarrassment she would have felt, being caught like an errant schoolgirl, halfway up a staircase she had ‘no business’ ascending, it was the unconscious thought of what might have happened had he not come home when he did.

Silas had something to tell her, she could sense his urgency, the way he was tapping his fingers on the edge of his chair. Her self-reproaches would have to wait, the shame of how easily she had lied would have to be dealt with in the dead hours of the night, in spite of her inevitable exhaustion. For now, the moment of self-judgement was postponed with some relief.

‘Lydia, the TRC is done, they've completed the report.’

‘Oh, does that mean you're out of a job?’

‘No, no, I work for the Ministry, remember, not the Commission.’

His art of evasion, something oblique, deflected in his eyes, even as he looked at her so directly. Just like the time he had to come and talk to her about his affair with that woman, Betty, his ‘comrade in arms’. A joke in poor taste, she had to remember not to repeat it, even to herself. But what infidelity had he to confess now?

‘So it's all over?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘Oh, Silas, can't you ever come straight to the point?’

‘Well, the damned report is done, they hand it to the President next week, thank God.’

‘You mean there was a chance they wouldn't have?’

‘Touch and go, as they say.’