‘No. Gin, or Scotch or something, if you’ve got it.’

Stephen mixed the drink, his eyebrows raised in faint surprise. When he handed it to her, he smelt her flower scent and the peachy freshness of her skin and the knot in his stomach tightened.

Pansy swallowed the drink straight off and then, at last, she met his eyes.

‘I’ve come to tell you that it can’t go on between us.’

The words fell like little drops of ice into the pleasant room. She waited, unmoving, and then Stephen laughed. Of course she was joking.

‘It?’

‘I can’t see you any more.’

Not a joke, but still he tried to laugh. He wanted to be warm and fatherly, dismissing this childish whim.

‘Pansy darling, what do you mean?’

Even as he said it, he saw the little, steely face and the cold blue determination in her eyes. He knew what she meant and shock silenced him like a blow in the chest.

‘I mean that I’m going away. To the States, as it happens. To work for a while.’ Pansy looked down and away from him and for a moment he thought he glimpsed discomfort in her eyes. ‘I’ve come to thank you, Stephen. And say I’m sorry. And goodbye, I suppose.’

Stephen stared at her incredulously. He put out his hands and then dropped them again.

‘Thank you?’ he repeated. ‘To thank me and then go? Just walk out after all the months we’ve been together and everything we’ve shared?’

There was a little silence and then she said, ‘You did just that to Beatrice, except that it was years, not months.’

Stephen went white. How had this cold little creature replaced pliant, sexy Pansy?

‘I left my wife for you.’

‘I never asked you to do that, Stephen. I never wanted you to. Listen, please listen. We made each other happy for a while but now it’s over. Please, let me go without a scene.’

‘A scene? Jesus Christ, a scene?’ Stephen was shaking now, and he realised something else. For the first time since childhood he was going to cry. His eyes stung and then the tears came, burning his face.

‘Oh no.’ Pansy was staring at him. ‘Please, no.’

Stephen’s hand groped like a blind man’s, he found the arm of his chair and then sat down.

Pansy moved awkwardly to him and took his head in her arms. She stood looking down at him, stricken, but he never saw that.

‘Don’t cry for me. I’m not worth it.’

Stephen pulled himself away from her and said through stiff lips, ‘I’m not crying for you, you little wrecker. I’m crying for the paltriness of it all.’

‘Yes,’ Pansy mumbled after him. ‘The paltriness of it all.’