Christine stripped the bed where Zachary and Lydia had last slept, then put the linen in the washing machine. She opened the window wide, snapping the clean sheets in the air as she spread them, raising dust, trying to exorcise the significance of the scene. Sitting down on Zachary’s side of the bed she picked up his things one by one, glad to be alone with them: the book with its marker a third of the way through, the stale glass of water, its sides furred with bubbles, the Fitbit he had neglected to wear – he couldn’t resist a gadget. Morocco-leather slippers, backs trodden sloppily down, lay where they’d fallen when he last kicked them off, holding the shape of his feet, darkened with his sweat; picking them up tenderly, she arranged them side by side. He had liked to prowl around at home in his slippers, heavy-footed and at ease, unbuttoned, domesticated, leaving a trail behind him of half-drunk cups of strong black coffee. All these objects ought to compose him – they promised solidity and permanence, she was incredulous that he could have slipped away between them. Opening his book to the place his marker kept for him, she stared at the page – were these the last words Zachary had read? It was about criminal justice in Baltimore: Christine remembered him full of outrage, declaiming statistics about young black men in the US prison system. But the book was dusty, his bookmark was only a third of the way through, he didn’t finish things. She couldn’t find any message from him in the words.

Lydia’s hair was dishevelled, she hadn’t put on any make-up for days, her long face was blotched and naked. The room where she was sleeping seemed rank with her distress, like a den with an animal ranging around in it; the duvet was kicked into a heap on the bed and the bottom sheet was pulled out wildly from its moorings, snaking in a thick rope across the bare mattress.

— Oh, you’re reading, said Christine in surprise, picking up a paperback book, a Scandi thriller, from where it lay face down on a pillow, its spine cracked.

— Is that awful? Lydia said. — I mean, I should be reading Tolstoy or Keats or something.

— You need to lose yourself, that’s natural.

— I know Alex thinks I’m a coward. But really I’ve never pretended to be anything else – have I?

— Nobody thinks you’re a coward.

— How am I supposed to get through the hours, Chris? Everyone’s dreaming up beautiful and dignified things to do for Zachary; the funeral will be a work of art in itself. But I’m really quite ordinary without him, I haven’t got any talent for anything. I’m not like you.

— I don’t feel very talented right now. I feel useless.