The women were filled with an infectious lightness, which partly came from the excitement of the gallery project. Zachary had told Christine he wanted her pictures in his first show, she was exuberant; Lydia was dizzy with choosing designs and furniture for their new home. She and Zachary were renting an apartment by the river while the chapel premises were transformed. Both women felt some balance of power in their lives had been restored in relation to their men, after the initial blow of becoming mothers to young babies, which had knocked them back; now their children filled them out rather than depleting them. Christine was aware too of a new strength in her relation to Alex, a private agnosticism like a resource of insight which she’d been collecting together slowly and invisibly. Perhaps this questioning of impervious male knowledge had always come to women at a certain age, in their prime, as they grew out of the illusions of girlhood. Or was it a new thing coming about in history, because of cultural change?

— By the way I’ve a plan for next year, Alex announced casually.

— What kind of a plan?

— Oh, just something to believe in, as you put it.

He’d thought he might do a year’s course, train as a schoolteacher. They were incredulous: that wouldn’t suit him, he’d never stick at it. — You haven’t got the patience for school teaching, Alex. You don’t know what it’s like, having to spend all day cooped up with children. And even if you got onto the PGCE, you’d hate being a student again, people telling you how to keep discipline in the classroom and all that stupid stuff. You’ll never actually get round to applying.

— I’ve had the interview already, as it happens. They offered me a place, I’ve accepted it. There’s funding, and I could keep up some evening work at the language school.

Christine looked at Lydia. — This is just like when he passed his driving test. He didn’t even tell me he was having lessons, until he’d passed! Why’s he so secretive?