‘What is she afraid of?’ asked Zoe when he told her about the wood-touching and the indispensable amulet.

He shrugged. ‘Of fate? Of some avenging fury that resents her happiness?’

‘Or of loss,’ said Zoe. ‘She lost her father. Perhaps she’s afraid of losing you.’

‘That’s the last thing she need be afraid of,’ he said.

It was midnight before he left. The next day he meant to tell Lisa where he had been. There were no secrets between them. But Lisa was nervous and uneasy – she and Mrs Cleasant had been to a spiritualist meeting – and he thought it unwise to raise once more a subject that was better forgotten. So he said nothing. After all, he would never see Zoe again.

But a month or so later, a month in which he and Lisa had been happy and tranquil together, he met the older girl by chance in the Portobello Road. While they talked, it occurred to him that he had eaten a meal in her flat and that he owed her dinner. He and Lisa would take her out to dinner. In her present mood, Lisa would like that, and it would be good for her to see, after the lapse of time, how her superstitiousness had led her into error. He put the invitation to Zoe who hesitated, then accepted when he explained it would be a threesome. Dinner, then, in a fortnight’s time, and he and Lisa would call for her.

‘I met that girl Zoe and asked her to have dinner with us. All right with you?’

The frightened child look came back into Lisa’s face.

‘Oh, no, Peter! I thought you understood, I don’t ever want to see her again.’

‘But why not? You’ve seen the photograph, you’ve seen how silly those ideas of yours were. And Stephen won’t be there. I know you didn’t like him and neither did I. But they’re not together any more. He’s left her.’

She shivered. ‘Let’s not get to know her, Peter.’

‘I’ve invited her,’ he said. ‘I can’t go back on that now.’

When the evening came, Zoe appeared at her door in a long gown, her hair dressed on top of her head. She looked majestic, mysteriously changed.

‘Where’s Lisa?’ she asked.

‘She couldn’t come. She and her mother are going on holiday to Greece at the end of the week and she’s busy packing.’ Part of this was true. He said it confidently, as if it were wholly true. He couldn’t take his eyes off the new transformed Zoe, and he was glad he had booked a table in an exclusive restaurant.

In the soft lamplight her youth had come back to her. And for the first time he was aware of the likeness between her and Lisa. The older and the younger sister, by a trickery of light and cosmetics and maybe of his own wistful imagination, had met in years and become twins. It might have been his Lisa who spoke to him across the table, across the silver and glass and the single rose in a vase, but a Lisa whom life and experience had matured. Never could Lisa have talked like this of books and music and travel, or listened to him so responsively or advised with such wisdom. He was sorry when the evening came to an end and he left her at her door.