Sheila shook her head. ‘No, I mean, are you emotionally free?’

He hesitated.

‘It’s very important, Daniel,’ Sheila said. ‘I never understood how Michael won that girl – I suppose he caught her at a low ebb or something – but I believe they’re not connected, except materially.’

Dan looked at her with interest, suddenly warming to her theme. ‘Would she leave him, do you think?’ he asked.

‘Would you ask her to?’

He was silent for a while, not certain how best to answer, then he said, ‘Yes, I would, as long as I was sure it was what she really wanted.’

‘Don’t you already know it’s what she really wants?’

He gave a short laugh and said, ‘Well, the early indications are good, Sheila, but we haven’t had time to have this conversation yet.’

‘Oh, come on, what does your heart tell you?’ she asked impatiently.

‘OK, my heart tells me we belong together,’ Dan said. ‘But my head tells me it’s not that simple.’

‘Fiddlesticks. Don’t give me that: it’s so disappointing.’

He felt a little irritated now: Dora with her sixth sense; Sheila giving him the New Age third degree. ‘You barely know me,’ he said. ‘So I don’t see how I could disappoint you.’

‘Sometimes I understand very quickly what makes people tick,’ she said. ‘And I saw right to the heart of you the moment I saw you.’

‘OK. So Dora sees an old soul in me, and you saw – what?’

‘Well, I could tell you loved her, as soon as you walked into the kitchen.’

‘Right. How?’ Dan didn’t mind the gist of this conversation – he was coming out of it well, after all – but even so he didn’t even try to keep the scepticism out of his voice.

‘Look,’ Sheila said, ‘I know this sounds like hokum, but seeing you two in the same room? It’s like walking into a warm house on a winter’s day. Alison hasn’t been within a coo-ee of our place for a long time, but lately I’ve seen her twice in short order and I’m telling you, she’s a different woman with you. There’s something inevitable about you and Alison.’

And all this was pure gold, but Dan didn’t comment, he only looked away from Sheila’s smile and considered the fact that he and Alison really did need to address exactly where all this was heading. During his solitary sleepless night in Adelaide, he’d contemplated a future without Katelin, and it had been hard, but not impossible; loving Katelin was a habit, but maybe not a necessity – maybe not. She was strong and clever and resourceful, and she’d been a peerless mother to Alex, but he, Dan, had begun to accept, over the past weeks, something that he’d possibly always known: that she wasn’t the one he adored. When Alison had appeared in the bar of the Exeter Hotel, he’d feigned a kind of relaxed, easy pleasure at their reunion, but in truth, she’d bowled him over just like the first time. He was no fool, he knew all about the mirage of greener grass, the siren call of lost youth, but he also knew the pure joy he’d felt when he saw her again, and that the world was wonderful simply because it still contained Alison Connor.