My heart pounded as I lay there in the dark. The minutes ticked by and I was seized with panic. What had I done? It was too late now to turn back. This woman lying beside me suddenly felt like a stranger. This happens when people are asleep: they return to their unfathomable, private selves. I told myself this but I was still filled with foreboding as I lay drenched with sweat, waiting for morning.

The next day the house was sold. When it happened I felt a throb in my bloodstream. I’d heard a twin feels this when their fellow twin has died.

And the following day we heard that Wuhan had been put into lockdown. My buyers were now trapped in China, in the midst of what was now called a pandemic.

‘Don’t worry, darling,’ said Azra, patting my knee. ‘It’s just a local thing. They caught it from their food markets. I didn’t know they existed, did you? With wild animals in them, horrible. Still, it won’t happen here.’

Four

Four

Azra’s flat was small. There was a bedroom, overlooking the side street and a rowan tree, and an L-shaped living room-cum-­kitchenette, overlooking the busy high road at the front and rooftops at the back. Its window opened onto the flat roof of Karim’s takeaway, where, in summer, Azra grew tomatoes.

They fitted her perfectly, those two sunny rooms where she lived freely, unencumbered by the weight of possessions. A few plants, a few pictures and a wardrobe of clothes; that was it.

My own possessions filled up half the bedroom. Suitcases and carrier bags, we were always tripping over them. In those early days this wasn’t an irritation. We were in love. The novelty was thrilling—shopping for two, cooking chickpea curries together in a haze of frying spices, swaying in unison like the couples I’d once envied, Bessie Smith belting out on the CD player. I didn’t feel an intruder, not then; both Azra and her home enfolded me in their arms. And how cosy it was in mid-winter, the wind rattling the windowpanes and bed waiting for us at the end of the day!

The loneliness was gone. My house was sold, the phone never rang, neither of us seemed to have any work; despite the filthy weather there was a honeymoon feeling to those weeks. I felt untethered from my former self; I was as liberated as Azra had always been, I had joined her world and she seemed to welcome me into it.

Well, yes. Up to a point.