There was no decision to make, but she didn’t reply to Dan. She sent Michael a text to say she was still with Tahnee, she’d be late, they had stuff to discuss, and this perfectly plausible lie came so easily she knew she should be ashamed, when all she felt was a kind of elated determination. She’d conquered the involuntary shaking, she’d held the steering wheel of the stationary car and made herself take long and steady breaths, she’d checked her appearance in the rear-view mirror, and now she was simply responding to the dictates of her heart and his, filled with resolve, shining with the clarity of her purpose. She was returning home. How Dan came to be here didn’t cloud her mind, the risk he’d taken, the folly of turning up unannounced. No: there was no questioning the ins and outs, the whys and wherefores of an inexorable force, and after all, the world could be crossed in the course of a day and a night, and they had to see each other, of course they did; they had to be in the same city, in the same room, they had to talk and to touch, they couldn’t simply spend the years they each had left trading songs across cyberspace. This certainty sustained her for the twenty minutes it took to arrive at the East End, and to park and get out of the car, but then, as she approached the familiar tatty splendour of the fine old Exeter Hotel she thought: Hang on, Daniel Lawrence is in there, and for a few moments she simply froze, even though her hand was already reaching for the door. She stood there on the step, paused in time like a woman spellbound, and a young guy behind her said, not unkindly, ‘You coming or going?’ then stepped round her and pulled open the door, and Ali could see Dan, saw him at once, knew him at once, although he didn’t see her because there was live music playing and he was watching the band, not the door: watching the band, holding a pint, waiting for Alison, as if he’d been doing this for ever.

She felt so sure of him. She walked through the open door and up to him where he stood, leaning with his back against the bar, and he turned his head before she spoke as if he’d sensed her there, and he smiled at her. Just that, a smile, but it was so completely familiar to her that she laughed. She was filled with love and wonder. Daniel put his glass down on the bar. They stared at each other, and his eyes roamed her face.