The mahogany balloon clock in the living room chimed the half-hour; always five minutes fast, just as the grandmother clock in the hall was five minutes slow and would strike with a soft double note, and the little silver moon with the dreamy face that Stephen had worked on for days would slide a quarter-inch higher on its rail. Tick tock tick tock tick tock. Like drops of water through the sieve of her bones.

It was lunch-time in America. Larry and Kirsty and Ella would be sitting round the table eating one of Kirsty’s curious ‘health’ meals, though there was nothing wrong with any of them other than Ella’s asthma, and the less fuss made over that the better. Wasn’t Kirsty some manner of Buddhist now? Before that it was veganism, Scientology, God knows. Restless people, the Americans. Everyone wanting to be Peter Pan or Tinkerbell. Foolish to found a country for the pursuit of happiness. People just got into a panic when they hadn’t got it. But good-hearted people. Generous. And Larry had been very happy there, though she had never stopped hoping he would come home. She had every episode of Sun Valley General on videocassettes in the living room. Still didn’t understand why it all had to stop. Artistic differences, he said. But what did that mean? It wasn’t a particularly artistic show. And last Christmas, when she was in San Francisco, he had spent hours sprawled on the big couch watching television and drinking (‘It’s just beer, Mum. Relax!’), which had immediately brought back horrible memories of Stephen.

She closed the book, a feather for a bookmark, and turned off the reading light. For a moment the room disappeared, then returned, slowly, in familiar grey outlines. It was like being sent to bed as a child before it was properly dark, lying there wondering what the grown-ups were doing, somewhat amazed that the world went on without you, that after all you were not necessary to it.

Below her window she heard Alec moving one of the chairs on the terrace. She knew that he liked to work out there, losing himself in work as though stopping his ears with paper. Poor love. And now that he had the play – some gloomy Russian who wrote in French – he had the perfect excuse. She hadn’t asked him to come back! Mooching around the place like a reproach. It wore her out. What did he want from her? And why didn’t he have any proper clothes? At thirty-four he was still dressing like a student. Why didn’t he buy some nice shirts?

In her chest, high on the left side, the pain dug drowsily with a single claw and she shut her eyes. Around her, the boards of the house, the old beams and joists, cooling now, creaked and whispered. It made the air seem talkative. Well inhabited. Full of presences not quite apparent.

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