‘Thanks. You’ve got pollen all over you,’ he said, licking his thumb and wiping it off the tip of her nose. She blushed and broke away, rubbing vigorously at her nose herself.

‘You expected me to be a total wreck, didn’t you?’ she blurted.

He shrugged, a bit sheepish. ‘Maybe. Because you wouldn’t see me. I thought you must be in a bad way.’

‘Well. I was. It’s hardly been a barrel of laughs. But I feel a lot better than I did a year ago . . .’

‘When can you come—’ He was about to say ‘home?’, then realized that this was getting way, way ahead. He didn’t know whether he wanted her home, or whether she did either. ‘Out?’ he finished instead.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said, and the slight embarrassment in her voice made Pat aware that she also knew there was a lot to discuss, before anything should be assumed regarding their future. There was a long, long silence.

‘Let’s sit down,’ he said. They both sat, still in silence. ‘Talk to me, Gill?’ Pat pleaded, feeling the panic rising in him again.

Gill looked at the ceiling, and spoke in a blank matter-of-fact voice: ‘At the last review, they said there had been a noticeable improvement, but they wanted to give it another six months to make sure it wasn’t a blip. Because I tried to kill myself after I’d been in here for four months. So I was considered a danger to myself. Do you want a drink? Coke? Tea?’

Pat felt as though someone had sucked the air out of his lungs, although the news didn’t come as a complete surprise. He had wondered if this was the case, because she’d been in there so long. They only kept you in secure units if you were a danger to yourself or a danger to others, and Gill was clearly not going to be a danger to anybody else.

‘No thanks, unless you happen to have any Jack Daniels handy . . . Oh Gill. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Why do you think?’ Her hand touched the arm of his chair without touching his skin, and he noticed that she was still wearing her wedding ring. He had to swallow the lump in his throat that had risen again.

‘You did bring photos of Bonnie, didn’t you?’ she asked abruptly

‘I’ve got tons on my phone, and videos – but they took it off me when I got here. I’m sorry, I should’ve realized they’d do that.’ Pat extracted the key fob from his jacket pocket, thinking that he ought to stop apologizing, and held the key-ring out to her. ‘Got one on here, though, but it’s from her birthday and so not that recent . . .’