My car is parked across the road. I slide into the seat, noticing with surprise how much unexpired time still remains on the ticket. It feels as if I have been away for much longer.

I drive back along the familiar route, noticing automatically more changes that don’t really make the old neighbourhood look different, not thinking, not weighing up yet whether I am relieved to have unpicked a piece of Ted’s history or whether the reflections and the illusions are still more vivid because he has made them so.

THIRTEEN

It was the third week in July and the leaves on the trees in our road were already browning and crisping at the edges with the heat and the lack of rain. In spite of this, Audrey was wearing her fox fur. I opened the front door on Sunday morning and there she was, standing on the front step with the dusty pelt fluffed up around her chin. I knew that she didn’t leave her own house all that often, and I was aware that I should probably have offered to go and collect her in the car. Too late, I had a mental picture of her solitary figure marching up the street with the fur drawn on like a suit of armour.

‘Hello, Audrey. Come on in.’

She peered past me into the hallway. I could hear Lola laughing as she talked to Sam on the phone.

‘Quite a big house, this,’ Audrey remarked. She had a good look into the room that led off the hall, then craned back her head to see up the stairs.

‘Is it? I suppose it is.’

‘Must cost a fortune to heat it.’

The fox’s glass eyes unwinkingly regarded me. There were beads of sweat breaking through the face powder on Audrey’s top lip and I wondered why we were discussing central heating.

‘Oh, it’s not too bad. Shall I take your fur?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Come on downstairs, then. I thought we might have a drink in the garden before lunch.’

Jack was hovering in the kitchen. I had been feeling nervous on his behalf, anticipating how it might be for him to encounter Audrey on his own tricky ground rather than in the safety of Turnmill Street, but I saw now that there was no need for anxiety. He gave Audrey a quick, relieved smile and she tapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. The complicity was all between them and I realised that I was the one they were mutually wary of. I went to the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine.

Lola came in and Audrey’s glance travelled over her fringed miniskirt and suntanned bare legs.

‘We met at the funeral.’ Lola smiled.

‘That’s right. Aren’t you cold?’

I steered everyone out into the garden and we sat down at the table in the shade of the neighbours’ cherry tree.