The rest of the afternoon passed off without incident, although it never dissolved into a pleasant state of relaxed intimacy. Vivian and Howard were too aware of one another. It made it intolerable for them to either converse comfortably or ignore each other. They were stranded in a painful, pitiful place, full of impossible, inconvenient yearning.

Both Ava and Enid were aware that this was the case, but try as they might, they could not come up with enough banal social niceties to stretch across the chasm that longing had created. Enid thought it might have been better if she had sat diagonally opposite Ava; at least that way it would not have been so obvious that at least half of the table was stonily silent.

35

AT FIRST SHE hadn’t been sure it was deliberate. She didn’t know, utterly, if she even wanted it to be. It was too wonderful and too terrible. When she’d clumsily dropped her fork and he’d reached for it too. They’d brushed hands. Not a blundering bump; a careful caress. A charge, an actual spark of something glorious had buzzed up through her fingertips, all along her arm, and dispersed in a warm haze throughout her body. She was glad that she’d given up the custom of eating with gloves on when in company. She might have been able to ignore the spark, except he took advantage of the confusion and deliberately moved his chair closer to hers. They sat through the rest of the afternoon thigh pushed up against thigh. The warmth of him oozing into her.

The next morning Vivian waved goodbye to Ava with surprising cheerfulness. Usually Ava’s departure caused her to feel gloomy and wretched, but today she felt heady; excitement fizzled in her gut. As much as she appreciated and loved her friend, she needed her to be gone.

She gave the note to Timmy Durham. In this context he was a safe pair of hands. She doubted he could read, but even if he could, his duty to her and his affection for Howard meant that he would not. Neither her maid nor the housemaid worked on Thursdays; she offered Mrs Rosebend a day off, insisting it was due recompense for the extra workload they’d recently experienced due to the influx of visitors. Mrs Rosebend politely resisted, insisting that it was a pleasure to have the master and his parents home. ‘Not visitors as such, are they?’

‘Well, no, I suppose not.’ She always thought of them as such.

‘Family. Nothing is as important as family, especially at a time like this.’

The comment helped Vivian alight on a different track. ‘How is your sister managing?’ Mrs Rosebend’s nephew had been injured; took the impact in the neck and left cheek. Not a fatal wound, but a nasty one. He was in a sanatorium in Derby, drinking out of a straw, not yet able to eat solids. It wasn’t clear how he ever would.

‘Oh, you know.’ A shrug, not so much acceptance as grudging tolerance. It was poor form to complain, but sometimes it was unreasonable to expect actual cheer. Mrs Rosebend was not married and never had been; ‘Mrs’ was a courteous, symbolic title, given out of respect for her position as housekeeper. She had no children of her own; the welfare of her sister’s children was an urgent concern to her. ‘She can’t get to see him as much as she’d like. It’s difficult to leave the younger two, and their da has trouble with his chest.’