Simon’s adherence to a strict routine was similar to her own. If things were not going well, he stayed at the typewriter trying to work it out, not so of all authors. Some found it best to take a break. For others it proved unproductive to work for more than a few hours each day.

It bodes well for our marriage, she had thought, that in this respect too we tick the same way. That we’re not going to irritate each other with inconvenient requests to be kept company.

Included in the sharing was Marianne’s mentally biting her nails along with Simon after the revisions were mailed to his agent, and the champagne toast to his novel when in December a deal was done and Simon summoned to New York to meet the man who would be his editor.

Marianne had accompanied him and they had afterwards agreed that it seemed fated for them to fly from there to Bermuda a year late, but husband and wife.

Tonight they would board the British Airways direct flight to London, and spent their last afternoon in Marianne’s paradise shopping for gifts in the quaint harbour town of Hamilton, where the store frontages had, apart from a few, retained the appearance of a bygone era, gloss conspicuous by its absence, and on the main street the waterfront was unimpeded by buildings, enhancing the pleasant atmosphere as did the friendly faces of Bermudians going about their daily business.

Marianne watched some uniformed schoolgirls, panama hats atop their heads, turn the corner of a steep incline leading to the bus station, and remarked, ‘How very English Hamilton seems. I could live here and feel welcome.’

She gave her attention to some paperweights in a shop window. ‘I wouldn’t mind one of those for my desk.’

‘Let me buy it for you, hon.’

‘A useful souvenir of Bermuda,’ she said with a smile.

Marianne chose an ovoid of solid glass in which was embedded spiky leaves of red and green. They turned it upside down to examine the base and burst out laughing. The useful souvenir of Bermuda bore a label: ‘Made in Scotland’.

‘Please excuse us,’ Simon apologized to the confused lady behind the counter, ‘my wife and I share a strange sense of humour.’

They left the shop with the paperweight which would ever after be for them a memento of a week of love and laughter.

The opposite of laughter greeted them on their return to London. A note informing them that Matthew was dead and buried had been slipped through their letter-box.

Marianne immediately called Laura and received from her a dressing-down. ‘Only you could have dealt with Arnold at the funeral. He tried to keep Pete away from the graveside and ended up scuffling with him. Needless to say, Lyn was in a state of collapse without that. How could you just have gone off, Marianne, without letting anyone know where you were!’