Claire saw her come in. She walked past her. She did not tell her anything. She went straight upstairs, and Jonathan followed her up and she told him that she had to go. Go where? he said. I don’t know, she said. London, for a start. She was packing already, taking things out from the drawers and the wardrobe. He said, It’s Richard, isn’t it, and she said, No, yes, but it’s not what you think, it’s not just that, although that was a part of it, it was something else, something I said that I should not have said, you will never forgive me. I told him, Jonathan, I did not know that he did not know.

That was not quite true. And Jonathan knew it was not true. He did not say. He only looked at her. She was taking her clothes from the wardrobe and folding them and putting them in her case. He left the room.

She packed everything. All her clothes, folded in the case, except for the clean ones she would wear. Then she went to the bathroom and washed, and gathered up her bottles and things, and brushed her hair, hard, and even put on some make-up, though she didn’t usually do that in the mornings. She took her case downstairs. She wanted to be gone before Richard returned, persuading Jonathan to take her to the station, saying that she would talk to him later, in London, in a day or two when he came, if he came, to see her.

When she got to London it was raining. She realised she had left her raincoat hanging by the back door. It did not matter. She could buy an umbrella easily enough.

She had taken a liking to the girl. But she was a foreign girl, from a long way off; from Japan, after all. She had been bound to leave, sooner or later. And now she had. That was what visitors did. Visitors came and stayed awhile, and then they left. The girl had come in flustered this morning and run upstairs, and when she came down again she looked very neat and clean, contained and Japanese once more, her suitcase packed and placed beside her. She noticed too late that the girl had left her red raincoat behind. She ran out with it just as the car turned away down the drive, hoping Jonny might see in his mirror and stop. Not to worry, she thought. He could take it to her sometime, couldn’t he?