Now only a dark channel, a ditch, a gutter lay between the ship and the wharf. Bells rang sharply. Men moved forward to the bollards and stared up at the ship. One raised his hand and shouted a greeting in a clear voice. Ropes were flung out, and a moment later the final stoppage was felt dully throughout the ship.

That was Troy down there. She walked forward. Her hands were jammed down in the pockets of her overcoat. She looked along the deck, scowling a little, her gaze moving towards him. In these last seconds, while he waited for her to discover him, Alleyn knew that, like himself, she was nervous. He lifted his hand. They looked at each other, and a smile of extraordinary intimacy broke across her face.

‘Three years seven months and twenty-four days,’ said Alleyn that afternoon. ‘It’s a hell of a time to be without your wife.’ He looked at Troy sitting on the hearth-rug hugging her knees. ‘Or rather,’ he added, ‘to be away from you, Troy. From you, who, so astonishingly happens to be my wife. I’ve been getting myself into such a hullabaloo about it.’

‘Wondering,’ Troy asked, ‘if we’d run short of conversation and feel shy?’

‘You too, then?’

‘It does happen, they say. It might easily happen.’

‘I even considered the advisability of quoting Othello on his arrival at Cyprus. How would you have reacted, my darling, if I had laid hold upon you under letter A in the Customs shed and begun: “Oh, my fair warrior!” ’

‘I should probably have made a snappy come-back with something from Macbeth.’

‘Why Macbeth?’

‘To explain that would be to use up all the conversation I’d saved up on my own account. Rory—’

‘My love?’

‘I’ve been having a very queer time with Macbeth.’

She was looking doubtfully at him from under her ruffled forelock. ‘You may not care to hear about it,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘It won’t be too long,’ Alleyn said, ‘if it’s you who tells it.’