‘Brian built those shelves for me,’ said Laura, more to annoy herself than Claud. Brian had made a clumsy pass easily parried.

Claud did not rise to this, but with one leg in his trousers hopped to his work table to make a note; he had been seized with an idea, must note it down.

How soon will he bore me? Laura wondered, watching him. ‘My threshold of boredom is a matter of weeks,’ she said, but Claud was absorbed and did not hear.

Laura moved to the window and pressed her nose to the cold glass, then blew, steaming it up. She wrote: Christopher, Miklos the painter, Tony from the US, Clug, Claud. She rubbed at the names with her palm. ‘It’s cold out there,’ she said. ‘Very cold.’

Claud said, ‘Um,’ still writing.

Laura clenched her fists, blew again on the pane, clouding it, cutting out the view. ‘There is no view,’ she said. ‘No view.’

Claud murmured. ‘Um, just a minute,’ writing with one hand, drawing his trousers on with the other.

I’d better get the view in proportion, Laura scolded herself. Time is up! He is becoming more than a toy boy, I have not been careful. ‘Time is up,’ she said out loud.

‘Nearly finished,’ said Claud, referring to his notes, as he tucked in his shirt and pulled up his zip.

Laura watched. Thank God, she thought, he does not know that I have come whizzing down from London several times and not let him know. Twice I have watched him asleep and not got into bed with him; another time I drove away without coming into the house, but last night I weakened, was unwary, lost control.

She watched Claud. His features would coarsen, she thought, his looks would improve. A few lines across his forehead and from nose to chin would add interest to the too young face, add beauty. ‘Oh, come on, Claud,’ she said impatiently. ‘Buck up.’

Claud threw down his pencil. ‘You sound just like my mother,’ he said. ‘What have you written on the window?’ He put his arms round Laura, pinning her arms to her sides, leaning over her shoulder, trying to decipher what she had written. ‘A list of your lovers? Let me see, don’t move.’ Laura kept quite still, very still. ‘Oh, darling, I wish you were like my mother, then I would not be jealous. I am so jealous.’

‘Put it in your book. Use it.’

‘I shall. My God, Laura.’ He blew gently on the window pane. ‘You have written my name. Look, it says Claud. As if I belonged to a list. What does it mean?’ But Laura had ducked out of his arms and made for the ladder.

Margaret Bannister was happy in her new house; there was something astringent about its plain walls, an innocence of atmosphere which pleased. Whoever had lived in the house before her had left no trace.