‘Nearly eighty – though I find it hard to believe. She seems to have remained exactly the same for such a long time that I’ve always taken it for granted. You don’t often notice changes in the people you love if you see them all the time, but I suddenly looked at her the other day and realised how much she’d aged lately. It gave me a hell of a jolt. Ageing isn’t like going down a gradual slope, it’s more like a staircase, don’t you think? People stay on the same step for a long time and then suddenly they seem to go down several treads.’

‘I’d never really thought of it before. Perhaps I’ve never been close enough to anyone to feel like that. Do you love your mother very much, then?’

‘Oh, my mother’s special. She’s amusing and wise and kind – and completely scatty. She drives my high-powered, pernickety father mad, but he adores her. We all do. You’d like her.’ Christopher laughed at Marnie’s expression. ‘You would, I promise you. She’d make you laugh. What’s more, I think she’d like you.’

Marnie was conscious of feeling quite absurdly pleased that he considered that someone he clearly both deeply loved and had respect for too might like her. She was also intrigued: the concept of anyone driving their husband mad and still being adored was a novel one to her. In Marnie’s experience, once the glitter of a marriage started to wear thin, the spouses invariably split up.

‘People often don’t like me,’ she said seriously. ‘I’m so hopeless with most people – I can’t seem to say the right things. I’m often so sharp; so unfriendly. I would have liked to go over to give Win a hug just now like Louisa did, but I had no idea what to say about Stanley and I was afraid of getting it wrong and making her even more upset – so I chickened out and said nothing.’

‘It’s not true that you can’t say the right thing,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ve been envying things you said the first day we met.’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You were so open in what you said and wrote about yourself. You and Louisa were both so honest – everybody else was too, except for me, but you two seemed especially so.’

‘Weren’t you honest then? I know you didn’t tell us much about yourself, but after all, why should you? Did you make it up about being moved by Chartres Cathedral?’