‘Oh my God, Dermot, I’m so sorry,’ Shona said, woken out of her pleasantly woozy stupor with shock. The fear of losing her children had been her worst nightmare, and one that haunted her throughout her pregnancy. She went to touch his arm with sympathy, but he kept walking, and so she hurried to keep up with him. They were silent until they reached Shona’s bus stop.

‘Well, here we are,’ said Dermot, but he didn’t make to go. He just stood there.

Shona had made a decision while they were walking, and said to him bravely, ‘You wanted to know what follows when true love goes away? It isn’t hate. It’s just a nothing, like a void or a vacuum. It’s nothing but emptiness.’ She looked up at him to kiss him goodbye again; she wished she was brave enough to kiss him on the lips, she could excuse it on the drink, on Christmas; she could deceive herself and him that she hadn’t really meant to; she could apologize and say that she was aiming for his cheek but had just missed.

But she didn’t have a chance to see how brave or foolish she was, as Dermot said, ‘Goodbye, Shona,’ and took her by surprise by kissing her quickly, but deliberately, on the lips. There was no mistake, and no apology.

As he walked off, Shona leaned back on the bus stop for support, her knees suddenly weak. She didn’t look after him, but stared fixedly ahead at the lights of her approaching bus. When the bus arrived, she sat on it in such a daze that she went two stops past her house and had to get another bus back.

Châteauneuf du Pape in a

Clapham Common Flat

THE NEXT DAY, Dermot was conspicuous in his absence from the staffroom. ‘Maybe he’s in the language lab?’ said Jane.

’No, I saw him in the library,’ said Jonty.

‘I think he’s avoiding me,’ whispered Pam conspiratori-ally to Shona, joining her on the window seat. ‘I’m sure he wanted to kiss me when we were dancing last night, I could tell. And when he left, he didn’t say goodbye to everyone like you did, he just got up and belted off.’

’You might be right,’ answered Shona neutrally.

Pam noticed the lack of enthusiasm in Shona’s voice, and asked, ‘Are you a bit hungover or something? You look dreadful.’

‘I’m fine, just a bit tired. And this is how I look without make-up,’ Shona said flatly. She had not put any make-up on deliberately, and had worn a dreadful sack of a dress that her mother had sent her, which she normally wore to clean the house in. It was her equivalent of a hair shirt. She thought she was making amends.