His tone was dismissive. The femaleness of this was beginning to annoy him, she could sense.

“In any case”—he made another note—“those pregnancy testing kits can be unreliable unless you follow the directions on the package exactly.”

“Look, I can read instructions on a kit, all right? A five-year-old child could understand those instructions. I just—”

“Of course. Of course.”

Her voice had risen; her tone had been a mistake. He became instantly soothing, a veneer of calm over a deepening lack of sympathy.

“Well, I very much doubt that there’s anything seriously wrong. You’ve been overdoing things, I expect. We’ll take our own sample, however, so we can rule out pregnancy for certain. I’ll run a blood test too. I don’t like the weight loss. See the nurse now and come back in three days. I’ll see you then.”

Gini returned three days later. She saw a different doctor, the first being out on emergency call. The second, a woman, was cheerful and brisk. The pregnancy test was negative. The blood test was normal. She diagnosed stress. She prescribed a short course of Valium. Gini collected the pills, took them home.

They made her violently angry. She tipped them down the sink.

CONFRONT THE DEMONS: THAT’S what Pascal would have said. Her stepmother, Mary, her friends—they might have given the same advice. But Mary, to whom she was so close, was away on a three-month trip to the States, and Gini did not ask her friends, not even Lindsay. To confront demons properly, she believed, you had to do it alone.

She tried to work, and failed; she tried to sleep and mostly failed. And, in the mornings, to make the day move, time pass, she walked.

No set pattern. That Friday, the Friday she was due to meet Lindsay, she walked north to Portobello, then south to Holland Park, then west to Shepherd’s Bush, then back along the main road to Notting Hill Gate. It was raining, a fine, thin rain, and cars hissed by on the streets. All the shops and restaurants seemed to buzz with a peculiar disjointed, distant life. Normal, normal, normal, Gini said to herself. This is normal—people shopping, friends meeting. It will be a normal weekend. I shall be my normal self. I’ll talk to people and function properly. I’ll stop sleepwalking through my life.

“A weekend in the country,” Lindsay had said. “Do you good, Gini. You like Charlotte. You like Max. You like their kids. You’re turning into a bloody hermit, a recluse. You’re coming. I’m driving you. No argument. That’s it.”

Gini had argued. She said a country weekend was just another kind of Valium. She said she wasn’t turning into a hermit, or some dotty recluse, she just liked to be alone, and she needed time to think.

“Bullshit,” Lindsay said. “You think too damn much. You always did. Pascal will be home soon…”

“It might be soon. It might not.”

“…And when he gets back, what’s he going to find? A wreck. You’ve lost too much weight, you look ill and sad. You’re not working, not writing, not going out. You’re getting peculiar. So stop.”