Eve carries her squirming son back to the kitchen. She puts champagne in the fridge and watches Eric’s tall figure through the window, trundling pieces of wood away for the bonfire, too busy to celebrate this special moment together. She bastes the salmon, watching the dark soy and honey slide over the pink flesh. She knew what he was like when they married; has he changed or has she? She didn’t mind the silences at the beginning, she was busy with babies. It hadn’t mattered then but now it does. She puts the salmon back in the fridge and takes out the steak to marinate in oil and garlic. He’s a wonderful father and a loyal husband, but if she never said another word, he might not either. She rubs garlic into the meat, imagining the silences stretching for hours, days, weeks. She has a brief vision of their lives going forward into the future, spent side by side in wordless quiet, like life in a monastery. When she tells Martin that Ash has said his first word he’ll laugh and clap his hands. They’ll talk; the chat might open into a discussion about language and books, the novel he’s reading or the chapter he’s writing. It could be something else like the view from his balcony or the people in the streets. Anything. Small talk, Eric would say, but it’s talk that expands, the conversations swirl outwards. Eric’s statements are like the shutters that close over shop fronts in the evening, metal ones that clang. Dog’s hurt, he’s not a baby any more.

She bends to Noah, running her hand over his leg. He whines when she feels round the left hip joint; perhaps she needs to get him checked over by the vet; family concerns flowing into the cracks in her marriage, filling them up and sealing them over, disguising the damage.

‘The table’s finished.’ Poppy appears in the kitchen, jerking her thumb at the window. There are two tables on the veranda, each set for six with candles already lit, coloured glasses and beakers of flowers filled with meadowsweet and buttercups.

‘Thanks, Pops. It looks lovely.’ She puts an arm round her daughter’s shoulders and cuddles her close although the slim body is rigid with resistance. ‘Shall we push the tables together? That way we can all talk to each other.’

‘Izzy said separate ones.’

‘Okay.’ She drops a kiss on the bright auburn hair. Don’t fuss, she tells herself, it doesn’t matter. It’s a party, anything goes. ‘So what are you wearing tonight?’