David looked around him then, and the dining room full of contented feeders was suddenly intolerable to him.

‘Could we get out of here?’

‘Of course,’ Jack said.

When David had got his coat and hat and made his way out into the air, he was stalled in any further purpose. The mist was shifting. A cool, watery shaft of sunlight fell on the pavement at his feet.

‘Why don’t we go over to the Japanese garden?’ Jack suggested.

They walked together in silence. David could hardly contain his fury at Jack, the one man who was supposed to be his ally, saying such a thing to him. Then he heard in his head, ‘Kill the bearer of bad news.’ But Jack shouldn’t have allowed Ted to talk about it, even to entertain such an idea. It was not one of Ted’s options, a man with a disturbed wife and three children.

They had gone through the gate of the gardens before Jack spoke again. ‘I’m sorry to upset you like this,’ he said. ‘But I think Ted needs your help. When I suggested he should talk with you, he said you’d simply kill him.’

‘He knows me better than I thought he did,’ David answered wryly.

They stood on the arching bridge over the pond, looking down at the carp nosing with a look of blind stupidity into the reeds at the bridge’s foundation. Chinese symbol for wisdom, weren’t they?

‘It’s the house, for one thing. Ted seems to think Mary’s retreated back into childhood there.’

‘Sell the silly house,’ David said. ‘I should never have suggested the move.’

‘Mary won’t hear of it. She says it’s the only thing that is keeping her sane.’

‘It isn’t Mary’s decision to make,’ David said.

‘Not technically, of course,’ Jack said. ‘I think there’s some truth in what Ted has to say, but I think he’s done some retreating back into childhood himself. He’s stopped thinking about Mary and the children as entirely his responsibility. He said, if he tried to solve the problem by moving out and that didn’t work, he’d be stuck with it, whereas if he leaves her there, she’s at home, and you’re there to look after her. He said, while they were away, you’d fixed everything in the house he’d been too depressed to deal with.’

‘To help!’ David insisted.

‘Of course,’ Jack said. ‘He’s looking for ways to feel useless. If you hadn’t done it, he’d use the burden of the house as an excuse.’

‘Well, what is to be done?’ David pressed.

‘Make him see he has other, better options.’

David pictured Ted in all his masculine vanity with new and cold distaste.

‘David, he’s a basically good man. We all have times of being out of love with Mary.’