For about half an hour, they cycled in single file with the sun ahead. Every so often Mickey, ahead of her, would point at the white horses in the distance, the chateaux on the horizon, the bull standing near the towpath, head lowered. When they came to the lock, they leant their bikes against the bank and walked up to the top. There were several locks together, like a watery staircase. They looked down, watching as the lower gates swung open for a boat, then shut again, closing them into a capsule of water. The people on board climbed with their ropes up the ladders on the lock’s walls and fastened them to the fixed bollards on the towpath high above. Then water rushed into the enclosed space and the boat was slowly lifted up to the second step, where the process was to be repeated.

‘It’s amazing,’ said Irene. ‘Extraordinary.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Mickey. He slid an arm round her sweaty shoulder. ‘I’m very glad you’re here with us.’

Irene stood quite still. There was a part of her that wanted to lean into him, turn her face to his, kiss his wide mouth, let herself be held at last. To be looked at as if she was gorgeous; to be touched and feel her flesh stir; to let desire seep through her, turning her to heat and liquid. Oh it had been a long, long time. Months, years – a whole lifetime away, before the years of ice and frost and earth hard as concrete. It was summer again, summer at last; she’d waited too long in the chilly shadows. She had almost forgotten what it was like to feel herself opening out and unfurling, until now with Mickey’s fingers curling round her slick shoulder, his eyes fixed on her freckled mouth, she let herself remember and felt her stomach loosen.

‘Do you miss your husband much?’ he asked.

She felt herself stiffen slightly. All desire left her.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ she replied.

‘When Sandy left, I got drunk every day for about six months.’

‘Well, I haven’t done that.’

‘But that was two years ago. You get used to it. I don’t think it would matter now except for the kids.’

He still had his arm around her. Couldn’t he feel how wooden she was to his touch?

‘Did he leave you, or was it the other way round?’ he asked.

‘He left me,’ she said shortly. If she gave him a small shove now, he’d topple in the canal. Her hands itched. She’d take him completely unawares and he’d sail through the air in a surprised dive, and then she’d be standing alone and unencumbered again.

‘Stupid man.’

‘Oh well,’ she said, making an enormous effort to stay amiable. ‘It’s always complicated, isn’t it?’

‘Was there another woman?’