In bed Martin turns towards her with his smile. ‘Hello, stranger,’ he murmurs as his arms wrap her round. There’s always this, she tells herself as their faces meet, this at the end of the day, when they are together and warm and everything else melts away.

But it isn’t quite the end of the day; once he’s asleep, she gets out of bed again and sits down to write at the kitchen table. Now and again she stares out at the trains passing beyond the allotments, beads of light travelling in the dark. Thousands of miles away the sun is rising in the mountains in the north of Zimbabwe where her grandfather lived on his farm. He used to tell her to walk slowly, look carefully in case you miss a sick calf or the moment when the maize is ripe for harvest. She wishes now she’d asked him how the hell you do that while you fit in everything else; no one walks slowly in London, not when you have a job and kids or hostile youths near your home. She misses him, she misses her whole family, the neighbours she used to have, all the friends. Life had seemed so much easier back home.

‘What do you think you’re doing here, bitch?’ she whispers to her reflection in the window.

Melissa

‘You actually look scared.’ Paul gets out of his chair and comes round the table with the wine; he seems amused. His suit is tight, the high cheekbones obscured by padding. ‘Were you frightened she’d force you to eat it?’

She should never have mentioned the cake. Perhaps she should have accepted Eve’s invitation; she could have bought some home with her. He might secretly love cake. He might consume it on his plane journeys or maybe his secretary smuggles it into the office for him, hidden in damp paper napkins. The last secretary used to ask for him in breathy whispers down the phone. Melissa didn’t really mind; she didn’t last long, they never do.

‘Izzy’s going to show me her story after supper.’ He pours himself another glass then sits down. He’s drinking more than he used to, but she can’t possibly point it out.

‘Oh, Eve was going to send it to me.’ How childish that sounds.

‘She must have sent it to Izzy instead.’ He smiles, head to one side with a mischievous look, the one she fell in love with years ago. ‘Does it matter, Melly?’

The light is harsh in here, the new decanters glitter on the sideboard, the lilies cast stark shadows over the tablecloth. He likes to examine what he’s eating in the same way he’ll examine her later. He wants to see what he’s doing.

‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ She’d wanted to see Izzy’s work for once, but she shakes her head. ‘It doesn’t matter at all.’