She was on the phone a very long time. I was beginning to think she had forgotten about me when she walked into the room, smiling brightly. Never in the past had we shaken hands but we did now, Liv assuring me how delighted she was to see me and calling me by my Christian name at the end of almost every sentence. Again she looked as if she’d spent hours on her appearance. She was wearing a very short almond-green knitted dress and jacket and almond-green suede shoes, not the sort of clothes to put on when you’re going to cuddle an infant but perhaps she never did, as Claudia had not. Her hair looked like a wig, it was so blond, dense, shiny, and symmetrical, its natural stripiness all gone, and her face like beautifully painted china.

She sat down opposite me, showing knees that were smooth and rounded yet with that sharp angle at the patella that defines perfect legs. I realized, amused, that I’d seldom seen her legs before, not counting the night they were splashed all over with blood. In those days they were almost always covered up in jeans. She twisted her diamond engagement ring nervously. Rubbing against the wedding ring, it made a small metallic scraping sound.

“I wanted to tell you, Clodagh, how happy we are with the lights. You really can get thirty-six different versions of lighting in this room, it’s amazing.”

I said gravely, “I’m so glad.” Had she fetched me all the way over here to tell me that? Surely not. “It’s a beautiful house.”

“Yes.” She made a conscious effort to leave the ring alone. “We had to do a great deal to it, of course.” It would have taken a good ear to detect that London was not her birthplace nor English her cradle tongue, so rarely did the lilt return. When she was tired or even more anxious than she was now the difficulty with her W’s might come back. In the Russia Road days it had been her biggest problem with English. It used to make Jonny laugh when she said “ve” for “we” and “ven” for “when,” he who would have been incredulous had anyone suggested he learn a foreign language. “What made you become an electrician, Clodagh?” she asked.

“I fancied it and I thought I’d be good at it.”

“And you are, as I very well know,” she said ingratiatingly.