Alex had wanted to communicate to Chris this afternoon how he felt divided between herself and Lydia, and how his desire was to carry on being connected to both of them. But he hadn’t been able to bring these words out, because he was afraid of her sarcasm transforming his fragile idea into a travesty, a laughable male offence. He saw Christine more clearly now than when they’d lived pressed up too closely against each other: her eccentricity and awkwardness, her dreamy vagueness, and something liberated in how, reacting to events and people, she came out with her startling pronouncements, her raw pained judgements of value and responsibility. Her character was in her face, worn to the fine bone and dimmed without make-up; her coarse thick hair, which she had cut off recently in a ragged short bob, with her own scissors in front of the mirror, was almost all grey now – in contrast to her eyebrows, smooth strokes of dark pelt. When Christine stood up to switch on the lamps, she offered him tea or a drink and he was grateful.

— Why not? It’s dark enough to drink. Shall I do gin and tonics?

She said she would do them, conveyed that he mustn’t make himself at home in this flat any longer. Alex was looking around him when she came back from the kitchen with glasses and ice and lemon on a tray. — Is something different?

— I painted the room. Only white again, but it looks nice, doesn’t it?

— You did it all yourself?

— I’m perfectly competent, you know. Iz gave me a hand with the glossing. I was sorting out your stuff to give to you, books and CDs, and then I thought, I might as well clear out the whole lot while I’m at it, give it a coat of paint. I enjoyed it. Like the old days: balanced up a ladder in my dungarees with my roller, hair tied in a scarf, listening to Radio Four. I learned all sorts of things. And there’s more space in here now, it looks better, not so crowded. I’ve changed the pictures round. Also I did the alcoves in that yellow.