So she could only imagine what happened next, picturing the scene until she almost felt that she had been there herself after all, spying from the shadows. At last just Frankie was left, sitting at the table still covered in the debris of the evening, her legs slightly apart so that Adrian could see the softness of her thighs. Her shirt was flimsy, and when she leant forward, he glimpsed the swell of her breasts. For a moment, she looked timeless to him, composed like a work of art: the medieval blue of her shirt and the creaminess of her strong bare forearms, while behind her the candles picked out the clutter of the table, the tarnished gleam of cutlery, the floppy orange curls of satsuma skin, the white plates on which bright paper napkins lay crumpled among the remainders of the meal. She picked up her wine glass and drank its last dregs. He could see the muscles of her throat working, and the red smudge her mouth left on her glass’s rim. One shoe was half off. Her hair had come loose and a dark blonde strand lay across her cheek. She smiled at him. He could hear Irene’s footsteps clipping busily across the bare boards of one of the rooms upstairs; a door slammed; a child’s cough was loud then splintered into silence.