Caustic words backed up inside her, questions snapping about his bitch of a wife, and whether she was sorry too. But there was something so simple and plain about his presence there, something genuine in his offer of sympathy, that those bitter feelings slid away. She turned from him, leaving the door open for him to follow, and went to the kitchen.

It was dark and cool back there, shadows cast by the house and the trees outside.

‘It was a hard thing to ask of you,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry.’

Outside, the children’s voices continued to rise. Hilary wondered, vaguely, who was watching them while their father was with her. She brushed the tears from her cheek and turned to him.

‘Did you ever have a pet?’ she asked, and he shook his head. Immediately, she felt embarrassed, looked down at her bare feet, the dirty lino beneath them. ‘You must think I’m mad,’ she said.

‘I know what it is to love,’ was his reply.

She met his gaze and had to chew her lip to stop the tears returning. A shriek from outside drew their gaze to the window for an instant, and when she looked back he was staring at her again. It was peculiar, being there with him. She felt calmer than she had all week.

‘I can’t have children,’ she told him. It seemed appropriate to share this information. The childish voices in the garden were voluble, a chattering stream, as if they were right there outside the window. She needed to impart this information so he would understand just what Bella had meant to her. So that he would comprehend the depth of her loss.

She could see from the expression crossing his face that he did.

‘Oh, Hilary,’ he said, and a jolt went through her to hear him say her name. A pleasurable ripple beneath her skin.

She smiled at him. He would go back to the children he’d left unattended and she would feel – because of his visit – a little better.

But he crossed the room to her and touched his lips to hers.

His mouth felt smooth and dry. She didn’t draw away, didn’t express surprise or indignation. Instead she felt compelled to wait, and when she felt his mouth opening to hers, his hands moving to her hips, something leapt inside her, the thump of her heart, as if it had suddenly been brought to life. Outside the children screamed and the sun beat down, but there in the kitchen it was quiet and still, every fibre of her being concentrated on the touch of his hand, the press of his body against hers, this contact at once intimate and strange. She knew it was wrong. She knew she didn’t want it to stop.