Yours,

Howard

Jean snatched up her keys and flew from the house, realizing at the end of the drive that she was still wearing her apron and slippers. She tore the apron off and stuffed it into the hydrangeas; the slippers could not be helped and Howard was the last person to mind or notice.

There was the dark shape of the Wolseley parked at the top of the road. The headlights blinked in welcome at her approach. The passenger door was open; she jumped in beside him and they clasped each other awkwardly across the hand brake.

She was aware of the bristly tweed of his jacket against her cheek and his unique scent—a combination of soap, tobacco and wool and the oily metallic smell of the workshop. Strength and comfort streamed from him like a warm current. She felt, as always in his presence, a deep sense of relief. Now she was perfectly safe.

They disengaged from their somewhat contorted embrace and looked at each other. In the shadows cast by the streetlamp outside his eyes were black and unreadable.

“My friend,” he said in a kind of wonderment, taking her hand and kneading it in his. “You’re here.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come. Waited all night, perhaps.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t miss you.”

“I would have come sooner if I’d known you were by yourself all this time. I’ve been kicking around at home with nothing to do but think of you.”

“Same here.”

“What a waste.” He put her hand up to his lips and kissed it.

At the tap of feet on the pavement they moved apart instinctively, guiltily. The passerby was a stranger to Jean, a commuter, with overcoat and rolled umbrella, returning late from the station. If he had glanced into the car he would have seen a plain middle-aged woman in slippers and an even older man with thinning hair and heavy-rimmed glasses—such unlikely objects of passion, he could hardly have guessed at the longing that flowed between them.

“I wish . . .” Howard began and then stopped.

“What?”

“I was just thinking, I wish I’d found you years ago.”

“You make me sound like a lost glove,” Jean laughed.

“Well that’s a good image. The missing half of a pair.”

She had come running out of the house without a coat and it was cold in the car with the engine stilled and the darkness pressing at the glass. He noticed her shivering.

“We could go somewhere warm. A pub, if you like?”

She shook her head, recalling those evenings spent in the White Swan with Frank while he drank himself into a good mood and then out the other side again.

“We have two empty houses between us,” she said. “Surely there’s no reason for us to skulk in the car? Why should we be lonely?”

And yet the guilt was there between them like an unwanted third person, interfering, spoiling everything.