He thinks of that last lunch at the pub and the way Charley had drawn him out and he determines that this will not happen again. She’s put a bit of a spell on him, clouding his vision rather than making it clearer. Each time he decided he would talk to Fliss and Hal about it, during the last few days, the words seemed to stick in his throat. He couldn’t quite find a way to start the conversation and he slightly dreads their expressions of surprise, disappointment. Part of him wonders if it’s simply the commitment that the navy demands that’s beginning to worry him and that the idea of having a vocation is just a way of backing out whilst looking as if he’s doing something rather noble. Certainly Charley was impressed but he’s not certain that Hal and Fliss would see it all in that light.

Driving through the quiet roads in the autumnal landscape, he finds the tension sinking away from him. The bare bones of the countryside are beginning to show through: crisp yellow and brown leaves drifting from the tall, stark trees; the last of the scarlet berries trailing in bare twiggy hedges. Glimpses of the distant moors, barely more than a charcoal scribble against a golden western sky, and, nearer at hand, small dun-coloured fields and round green hills, dotted with sheep that look like small granite boulders.

He drives on, feeling calmer, though he has yet to take a decision. Instead he thinks about the coming weekend: Jack’s party, seeing his friends again. He wonders if Cara has any clearer ideas about her future or if she feels as indecisive as he does.

When he arrives at the house in Buckley Street, Judith is talking on her phone, Max is sitting at the kitchen table staring at the screen of his laptop whilst Cara sits opposite writing in a birthday card. They look round as he ascends the stairs. Max raises a hand, Cara beams at him, Judith glances at him, gives a little nod and moves away, along the passage towards her bedroom, still talking. Oscar’s tail wags as he gets up to greet him.

‘Bit of a crisis in Oxford,’ Max tells him, as if to apologize for Judith’s offhand welcome. ‘Good to see you, Sam. How’s everything? How are Fliss and Hal?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ he answers. ‘People staying, family at the weekend. Usual stuff.’

‘It must be rather wonderful,’ says Cara, ‘to have lived in the same place for all of your life, and your ancestors before you. Such a sense of continuity. Of belonging.’

She sounds wistful and Sam sees Max glance at her.

‘You wouldn’t have wanted to stay in Sussex,’ he says, almost bracingly. ‘It’s not always as idyllic as it sounds.’

‘No,’ she says quickly. ‘No, I wouldn’t. But The Keep seems rather different somehow. Wonderful vibes.’