Florence agreed. We sat for a time together in the conservatory and talked it out carefully. I could see a stirring of interest and a desire to help behind her natural caution. I explained that all it meant was that I would take over James’s responsibilities, as they applied to the house, set it to rights, get the garden into shape, that she could come at any time with Thomas, and remove anything from the place that she wished. After a little thought she said, very simply, that she thought the bed should be removed. Nothing else had any value, but the bed, valueless, held intense unhappiness. She’d remove that.

I took that suggestion to mean that she had agreed to my occupation of Jericho.

I think that the thing which finally swayed her to agree to my rather impetuous idea was that I had pointed out, quietly and firmly, that the very best place from which to start operations to find out what had happened to James, or where he had gone, was to be in the centre of it all. I would be able to move about the countryside, speak to people, talk to, for example, Mr Aronovich, or go over to L’Hermitage and try to find out if anyone there had any knowledge which could be useful. To be sure, people did just disappear; it was very much a commonplace situation, people just dropped out, and it would seem that James had reasons. Anyway, as far as he was concerned.

Talking together like this, she seemed to grow stronger: there was a surge of interest in her which I had not seen before, and when she saw me to the front door her eyes had a light they had lacked in the past. There was a sort of complicity between us. I could feel it – I know that she did – and when we heard Madame Prideaux calling from some far region of the house, she was not startled, but smiled, and placed a hand on mine and told me that I was completely idiotic. But we could make it work.

Of course I knew then exactly how much I had bitten off. I was not absolutely certain that I would be able to chew it, as they say, but at least I knew what could be, not definitely, not for certain, but what could be ahead. Helen had to be talked to; the children … They now seemed to be a little more important than they had been to me before, and the Parsons Green three-floors had to be dumped as soon as possible. The sooner I got the place sold, the sooner my family had no roof over their heads, the sooner they got used to the idea that I had gone, if you like, for ever, then the better. At forty-seven I could see a new life ahead for myself. Uncluttered, calm. I could start out again.