He holds her there in his stare for a moment longer, as if he’s considering adding something. In the end, he turns from her and she follows him into the house.

They take their seats on the sofa and resume watching Mohicans. But an anxious presence is in the room with them now, and after a few minutes Greg stands up, announcing he’s going to bed.

Hilary lies in the dark. From the next room, she can hear gentle snoring. But she’s too jittery to close her eyes. She keeps thinking she can hear a car engine outside. At one point, she sits up, startled by the scream of mating foxes. Looking out at the night sky, she tries to read the stars, but streetlamps blur the darkness and pretty soon she gives up and lies back against her pillow.

Her eyes close and she thinks about the neighbours gathered on the street outside, and how it reminded her of another night many years ago – another gathering.

They were coming home from the pizzeria when they saw people standing outside Number 14. It was a Saturday night and music was playing within the house, laughter and high-volume conversation, the tooting of a trumpet pouring out through the open windows and door. There were people on the street with drinks in their hands, leaning against the railings, sitting on cars, an off-spill of the party inside.

‘Who are all these people?’ Greg asked.

He was holding Hilary’s hand, a bottle of wine he’d picked up in the off-licence in the other.

‘A party,’ Hilary said, before adding drily: ‘Our invitation must have been lost in the post.’

This was three days after they had moved out of the flat. Their house, while not quite finished, was habitable, and Greg had been impatient for them to go. Charlotte had been courteous but brisk when they’d handed back the keys, and Hilary had just about managed to be civil. There was no love lost between the two of them – not since they’d fallen out over the dog. Three days of back-breaking work, cleaning and painting and moving furniture around. She had thrown herself into it, careful to hide her doubts from Greg, about the house, about him, and her growing anxiety over the difficulties involved in seeing Anton now that they were no longer living in the same building.

Greg was moving away from the house heaving with people, when the idea came to her, and she pulled him back.

‘Come on,’ she said, tugging Greg towards the steps. ‘Let’s check it out.’

She felt his resistance.

‘No, Hil.’

‘Come on, why not?’

‘I’m tired. Can’t we just go back to ours? Besides, we weren’t even invited.’

‘So? They can’t have a party like that, right across the road from us, and not expect us to crash it.’