Lydia shook her head. Nothing had happened. No time now to explain: the guest conductor, hero of the occasion, was making his entrance. If Lydia had come three minutes earlier, Christine would have got up and left, but she was too obediently well trained to make a fuss now that the music was beginning. They sat side by side in a parody of close attention, staring fixedly at the stage, not hearing anything: the first notes the orchestra struck might as well have sounded on another planet. Christine burned with her sense of the trick played on her, and the concert spoiled, and the impossibility of sitting there a moment longer – and then there was the incriminating black jacket. She would have liked to tear it off. How had Lydia known about the concert, and to find her way to the right empty seat? Of course, Alex would have ordered the tickets online, the receipt would have been in his inbox. It was just like Lydia to find out his password and go hunting through his emails.

Making no effort with the music, Christine was surprised when she began to hear it without thinking about it. Inside the space the music opened – as if it pushed back, for all its delicacy, against some melodramatic smash of closing doors – her consciousness rebalanced and calm imposed itself. For who would care about their passion in three hundred years? Nothing could be more ordinary, after all, than sitting here beside Lydia, whom she had known since they sat together at a School Founders’ Commemoration Day. The two women didn’t look at each other but, suspended in their proximity as time passed, they became used to each other again. At the edge of her sight in the dimness Christine was aware of Lydia’s knee in black tights, and the fluffy sleeve of a cardigan she had shrugged off because she must be hot. So she was mortal still, and not transfigured with her happiness.

When the interval came, Christine stood up at once with everyone else, meaning to go home. Lydia gripped her arm, pulling her back down; people peeled away, going out of the auditorium for drinks, from either side of where they sat. — Chris, wait, just for a moment. Then I’ll go, you don’t have to.

A rubbery false composure seemed stretched across Christine’s face. — So, are you enjoying the concert?

— Alex doesn’t know I’ve come here. It’s all my own idea. He’d hate it, obviously.

— They’re playing beautifully, aren’t they?

Lydia looked at her unhappily. — I just couldn’t bear not to have talked to you. It seemed so cowardly. I didn’t want to be a coward, just for once.

— But I’m not talking to you.