He slumped back in his chair. At last, it seemed he was finished. In the silence, he toyed with his coffee cup, twirling it in the saucer, he rubbed the back of his neck, and then returned to his twirling. Sylvie hadn’t coped particularly well when Andrew decided to live on the other side of the city, goodness knows what she would have done if he’d opted for an utterly alien lifestyle. She was wondering if she would have had the patience, the wisdom too, to handle the situation as Mark Asher had done, when she saw him looking across the table at her. He was shaking his head slowly, his lips pressed together, his embarrassment obvious.

‘I’m usually reserved,’ he said, ‘and most especially about personal matters. I can’t imagine what possessed me. I’ve been sitting with you,’ he checked his watch, ‘for close on thirty minutes, and I haven’t even asked your name. I can’t imagine what you must think of me.’

As it happened, she thought rather well of him. So much so that when he suggested he treat her to lunch to thank her for being such a good sport, she accepted without hesitation. It was her decision they make the arrangement there and then. And so they did, a week from that day. He invited her to University House and the staff restaurant there. It would be a first for her, as everything about Mark Asher would prove to be a first.

Sylvie was up in her office when she heard Leonard come in from work. Spread across her desk were several pages of a letter, together with the clean copy she was making. She quickly covered the papers with her grandmother’s hand-embroidered cloth kept exactly for this purpose (it often happened she was called from her desk without time to put her work away) and switched off the light. She stepped onto the landing, closed the door. And stopped.

Leonard was home early, very early; not only was she in the middle of some work, but after this quite extraordinary day, she wasn’t quite ready to face him. Where was it written that a wife must spring to attention as soon as her husband walked in the door?

From the top of the stairs she called out she was busy and would join him in a short while. He called back that she was to take her time, perhaps equally pleased to be left alone. Sylvie re-entered her office and resumed her copying.