Those days when Alex went missing – he was away almost a week – were for Lydia a strange interval of waiting. She didn’t know if he was coming back to her. What had he talked about with Christine, that last afternoon before he left? The weather changed, after a first blustery night, to a stretch of mild late Indian summer through all the country: slanting golden light fell tremulously through the windows at Garret’s Lane with their old uneven glass, onto the iron spiral staircase and across the warm yellow-brown of the parquet, the rich rugs. On her way to make coffee in the mornings, Lydia paddled with bare feet in warm pools of light and told herself she mustn’t be afraid in Alex’s absence, must be worthy of him and hold steady. Then she took her coffee back to bed, along with one of the serious books he had recommended. In all that time he was away she hardly went out of the house, though she looked after herself carefully, bathing and washing her hair, eating fruit, taking her vitamin pills daily, keeping away from alcohol. When the cleaner turned up Lydia pretended to be preoccupied, writing business letters at Zachary’s desk.

One afternoon she telephoned Grace, and was surprised by how easily they talked together: all their old antagonism seemed to have fallen away and it was suddenly simple to be kind. Grace said she might come back to London, nothing was working out for her in Glasgow, she wasn’t happy with having changed from sculpture to painting, she’d lost her way in her art. Lydia encouraged Grace to come home, if that was what she wanted. She could take a year out from her course, or give it up altogether – who cared? When Grace wondered about doing something entirely different with her life, studying to be a nurse, Lydia said it was a beautiful plan. All that mattered, she said, was that Grace was happy. She spoke these words wholeheartedly, and embraced without a qualm the idea of her grown daughter living in Garret’s Lane alongside herself and Alex. She wanted to tell her that Alex had gone and she didn’t know where he was or whether he would return, but didn’t dare speak her doubt aloud in case that made it more dangerous.