Sure enough, as Lily threaded her way through the customers with a stack of plates on one hand and three pint pots in the other the man slid from his stool and stepped into her path.

She paused with a look of polite enquiry.

He said something in a low voice, smiling in a way Isaac found nauseating.

Lily smiled back neutrally. ‘Thank you, but I can’t.’

Sidestepping him, she whizzed around the bar and vanished in the direction of the kitchen. When she made the return trip the smile the man turned on her was more knowing. ‘Can’t? Or won’t?’

‘Won’t,’ Lily said briefly and headed for a table waiting to be cleared.

The man’s companions’ grins widened. Obviously they enjoyed watching him strike out. He turned back to the bar and waggled his empty glass at Isaac. ‘Is she involved with someone?’ he asked at Isaac’s approach, indicating Lily with his head.

Isaac, feeling immeasurably cheered by Lily’s chilly reaction, took the glass and placed it beneath the lager pump. ‘Got some idiot mooning after her,’ he said, which he knew to be the utter truth, and let the guy take that as he would.

Later – it felt like much later – Isaac sent Lily home and mechanically performed his final duties: locking up, cashing out, checking the CCTV was on. Wearily, he climbed the stairs. On the landing he hesitated, seeing a light in the kitchen and wondering if Hayley needed anything from him before he crashed down onto his bed and tried to sleep. Two weeks and four days post-op she was managing dressing better but still needed someone to hold things and steady her when she washed. Her dressing was off her reconstructed breast now and she tried to keep it with its thin, red, diagonal scar and missing nipple, out of his line of sight. If she could only get that last drain out then she wouldn’t need him in the bathroom at all.

Then she was there in the kitchen doorway wearing black pyjamas, a steaming mug in her hand. She’d bought the PJs especially for her post-op period, button fronts to make it easy to thread herself in and out of along with elasticated front-opening bras she called ‘over the shoulder boulder holders’.

‘Need anything?’ he asked.

‘I’m good, thanks.’ She hesitated. ‘Isaac … tell me to butt out if I’m overstepping but I’m getting that feeling again about you and Lily. If you’re not watching her when her back’s turned then she’s watching you. She enters the room and I can hear your heart beat.’

His heart lifted a notch to hear Lily was watching him but how was he going to handle this? Hayley was so vulnerable now.