Jared, gazing off into the distance, picked up her hand and placed it between his two warm ones, resting it in his lap. She could feel his thumb stroking her palm. ‘It’s a different world you and I inhabit, Connie. It doesn’t touch Devan. I’ve never stopped you loving him.’

‘You don’t exactly help.’

He laughed, and she did too.

‘This isn’t easy for me … Please try to understand,’ she said, staring at his profile, her voice rising in her need to make herself clear. ‘I can’t make love to him when I’m remembering how it is between us … when I’m waiting to be beside you again. I can’t meet his eye across the breakfast table. I can’t say, I love you, when you’re filling my thoughts. I can’t do it any more, Jared. I just can’t.’ Her voice dropped for the last sentence, weariness washing over her. She slumped against the bench.

Jared rose, stood with his back to her, his hands in his jacket pockets. She held her breath. Getting up too, her eyes were fixed on his still frame. The sun was gone now, and a breeze blew sharp off the river. She shivered, battling the scratchy stupor from a sleepless night.

‘I should get going,’ he said. He did not turn to her and she felt a tiny pang of rejection she knew was unjustified.

Jared began to walk back to the hotel, Connie following in silence. What will he do about his hire car? When does his plane leave? It seemed easier to think about the practicalities, her tour-manager muscle automatically flexing, but she held her tongue.

He turned to her when they reached the hotel. ‘I hear you, Connie. I do.’

She felt the finality of his words, like stones in her gut. An involuntary flash of last night’s lovemaking made her catch her breath. One more kiss, she thought, but knew that was something she could not ask for … and would never have again.

‘Goodbye, Jared,’ she said.

Their eyes locked. She saw the turbulence in his and closed her own, feeling them both swirling upwards together, like leaves in the wind. When she opened her eyes, he had turned away and was walking slowly towards the bridge.

15

Normally the night train to Euston was a series of rattling, swaying, jolting patches of fitful dozing. Connie hadn’t expected anything more. But last night she’d passed out, still fully clothed, as soon as the train started to move, only waking when the steward rapped sharply on the door of her compartment, informing her they were an hour from Euston.