‘See, I made you laugh at least.’

‘Don’t say that. I had a good time last night,’ I protest.

‘Me too.’

‘It’s just . . .’

‘I know.’ He nods. ‘It’s like we keep missing each other, right?’

‘Yeah, it’s exactly like that.’

Putting down his mug, he reaches out and strokes Harry, who has somehow managed to wedge himself under Ajay’s stool.

‘Keep in touch?’

‘Absolutely,’ I nod.

‘I’m available for pub quizzes and bar mitzvahs.’

I laugh and he gets up off his stool and comes over, sliding his arm round my waist to give me a hug. It strikes me how different this feels to when Ajay held me last night on my doorstep.

I hear the key in the lock. It’s the builders arriving. As the door opens we break apart, but Ben has already seen us.

‘Morning.’

‘Morning,’ I say brightly. For some reason I didn’t want this to happen. ‘Ajay was just leaving,’ I add quickly, then wish I hadn’t. Why do I feel the need to explain?

Ben is carrying a large container and he steps aside to allow Ajay to pass. Briefly they say hello and I follow Ajay outside, bumping into Fetch Me and Carry Me, who look very surprised to see a man leaving my house so early in the morning. I ignore the looks flashing back and forth between them. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be discussed very loudly across the back garden later?

Outside, I offer to give Ajay a ride to the station. ‘If you wait five minutes I can throw on some proper clothes, grab my keys.’ But he refuses, saying he needs to walk off his hangover, so I wave goodbye, then turn back and walk up the path, trying to rehearse what I’m going to say to Ben. There are so many questions, so much I want to say, but I don’t know where to start. How do you bring up the subject of someone’s dead wife?

I walk back inside to find Ben with the other builders, clustered around the Aga. He looks up when he hears me.

‘Livvie, if you’ve got a minute, do you want to look at these tile samples for the splashback?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ I nod.

Answer to my own question: you don’t.

Maya

It was just after they’d left the theatre and were walking across the city centre towards the car park. Liv, her English tutor, had got tickets for a production of Macbeth and they were discussing the performance. Exams were only a couple of weeks away and the play was one of her A-level texts.

‘I thought it might be really helpful to see it onstage,’ Liv had said, all enthusiastic. ‘It’s in Leeds – an hour’s drive away – so I’ll pick you up.’

Maya liked Liv. She was cool. Much cooler than her parents, although she was probably about the same age. Plus she’d adopted Harry and was into sustainable fashion, though she really needed to have a word with Liv about all that fleece. She was also a good teacher. She made things fun and interesting and her enthusiasm rubbed off.