To me it seemed like a month. We … eell not quite true, just seven endless dragging days. I had never been to Connecticut, so I had no notion of the landscape. I was sure that there were trees, at that moment bursting into leaf, early rhododendrons and camellias, perhaps a stream somewhere close, with willows by the bank. Small rolling hills, perhaps. I thought of all these elements of landscape, but I couldn’t put them together in my head. So I envisioned him walking in emptiness, semi-dark, alone. Longing for me.

Was his mother dark or fair?

I was sure she wouldn’t be grey.

Did she have long fingers, ring-heavy, with which she would brush the sleeve of his cashmere jacket, or touch his cheekbone, just below his right eye? Even the thought of that intimate gesture took my breath away for a moment.

Of course I went to work and out to eat with friends and to the cinema and my life rolled along as it always had done before I had met James Cavan.

My fridge became empty once more.

I couldn’t sleep, expecting every moment his call. I imagined him escaping in the car down to the local mall and putting through calls to me from the drugstore or gas station; but he never did. Or slipping out of bed in the early hours of the morning, and creeping to the telephone, whispering my name, delighting in his idiotic bravery, but he never did that either.

He called me on Tuesday. I was eating a yogurt in my office and looking over my notes on The Last September when the phone went.

‘Hello. Clara Barry.’

There was a long silence and I thought that someone had dialled a wrong number. I was just about to put down the phone when he spoke.

‘How formal you are, Clara Barry.’

‘I thought you were never coming back again.’

‘Where’s faith?’

‘Who’s she?’

‘I’ve missed you so much, darling.’

Try harder, I thought.

‘Did you miss me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you working?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll go then. I can say all the things I want to say this evening.’

‘I’m going to the cinema this evening.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I hung around all day yesterday waiting for you to call. I was free last night. I’m always free on Mondays. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays.’

‘Cancel it.’

‘James …’

‘I’ll see you at seven-thirty.’

He put down the phone.

I put down my yogurt and went in next door to Sophie. She was doing stretching exercises, standing by the window, arms up above her head, bending slowly from side to side.

I stood and watched. She would notice me in her own good time. She let her head roll around, chest, side, back, side. I could hear the rustling and crackling of nodules and whatever else was in there, from where I stood, like old ball-bearings grinding together.

‘Hi,’ she said at last. She stood up straight, balancing her fingertips on her desk and trying to focus her eyes on me.