‘I think I’ll wait until tomorrow morning, if that’s all right with you. I’d like to get away early – give Pansy a run and then set out. Then I can take my time. Stop here and there, let the dog stretch her legs. I told my mother I’d be home before dark.’

‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’

‘I don’t really have much alternative. That’s what I’ve come up with in the last few days. I have to thank you for that. If I’d stayed over in the other place, God knows what I would have come up with.’

He looked at her in silence for a long time. ‘Have you any tidy clothes?’ he asked finally.

‘Of course I have. You don’t think I’ve spent all my life looking post-operative, do you? Looking like a hag?’

‘I suppose not.’ He sounded dubious.

‘Any reason?’

‘Well, it’s back to food again. I just thought that maybe you’d come out and have a meal with me, somewhere a bit posh. A sort of reconciliatory meal … also a thank you.’ He smiled at her; it was that charming smile that she had noticed before. ‘I’d like to thank you and I don’t suppose an invitation to the Glens of Antrim would be acceptable.’

She shook her head. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I can dig out some tidy clothes. I can surprise you.’

‘Good. Well, back you go to your computer. Maybe I will surprise you too.’

The small hours

The Gingerbread Woman

(continued)

Of course he didn’t stay the night.

I thought that he was going to. I finally fell asleep with his arms around me, feeling as I drifted into dreamless darkness, that some threshold had been crossed, that for the first time in my restless life I was heading for a calm happiness that I had never known before.

I was so deeply and confidently asleep that I never stirred when he left the bed. It was the sound of running water that woke me. I lay in our warmth with my eyes tight shut listening to the sounds of someone else living in my life and waiting for him to come back into the bed. The sounds changed. Soft bumpings and rustlings made me open my eyes; it was still dark, but the light from the street laid bars of silver across the floor. He was standing on one foot pulling on a sock.

I sat up.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I have to go.’ He whispered the words and groped around for his trousers.

I switched on the light.

‘You’ll see better with the light on.’

I looked at my watch. It was ten to two.

‘I have to be at the office when the Tokyo Exchange opens. It’s important.’

He still whispered. I wondered to myself why was it that people whisper in the dark even when there is no need to. My voice sounded very loud when I spoke. Maybe of course it was very loud; maybe I was shouting at him, though I didn’t intend to.