Hmm? he says behind her, as she shrugs her mackintosh into his arms. Now he is slipping around the side of her, hanging it up beside his and striding into the kitchen.

Are you okay? she calls after him.

Just putting the kettle on, comes the reply.

She follows him into the kitchen. Nothing amiss. No pile-up of empty whisky bottles, no newspaper cuttings pinned to the wall; nothing to indicate a chaotic mental state.

You haven’t been online at all? You didn’t get my messages?

He is retrieving the special cups – the Paris cups – from their special box.

Ah, no. There were messages? I’m sorry. I didn’t think we were talking.

Matter-of-factly. As though that were no more significant than the light being off in the downstairs toilet. It’s true, they weren’t talking. But there had been something awful in the silence. Something that after three weeks began to feel ominous. In the silence, she had imagined she could hear the creak of the canoe hook in the garage, and as the days passed, a humming: an ovation of flies, their lives hatched out of the cool December air by Death’s magnetic pull.

I was worried when I didn’t hear from you, she says.

Now he is spooning leaf tea into the teapot. Leaf tea! As though her coming home is a special occasion, not suited to tea bags.

Other things were going on, he says.

So carefully, he pours water into the pot! As though he is a god creating a permanent geographical feature.

Like what? she asks.

Now the whole shebang is coming over to the kitchen table on a tray. The Paris cups. The teapot cosied. Milk decanted into her mother’s jug.

It’s hard to explain, he says. Later maybe. When you’re settled.

He sets the tea between them. Staring hard into his face, she finds nothing she can identify. No perimeter wall. Not a splinter of sarcasm.

He says, I thought you were done with me, to be honest. I’m glad you’re not.

I didn’t say that, she answers quickly. Surely, she thinks, that’s like whisking the doormat from under his feet, he’ll topple, he’ll collapse into a Finlay she recognizes.

Ah, he says, and she sees something pass through him, clear as water. Then he nods and smiles. No, worse. He beams. Ah well, I don’t blame you. Have a cup of tea with me anyway.