Bell looked back at Emil, feeling awkward. ‘Well, I’ll let you get some rest.’

‘Bell –’ She was at the door when he called.

She turned. ‘Yes?’

‘. . . Would you mind bringing some water over?’ He pointed towards the carafe on a table by the window. ‘My balance is off.’

‘Sure.’ She crossed the room, noticing it for the first time as she went. In all the worried activity, she had seen only people – only him – but now she saw that the walls were lined with old hessian paper panels, trompe l’oeils of gentle arches drawn on in dark-grey surrounds, the centre panels left white; the wooden bed was made up with vintage monogrammed sheets and a duck-egg-blue blanket folded across the end. A vast mirror with mottled, foxed glass dominated one wall and twin lampshades with faded red shades sat on the bedside chests. It had a gracious, cultured feel to it but, like all the other rooms in the house, there was almost nothing personal in it – hardly any books, magazines, pictures – as though everything had been packed away. But there were photographs on the table with the water jug.

She couldn’t help but glance at them as she poured. Several were of Linus as a baby; one showed Hanna in her wedding dress, classically beautiful and poised. She was wearing a minimal gown – sculptural satin column, bare arms – her hair twisted into a chignon, pearls at her throat, white roses in her hands . . . She seemed to be listening to someone talking just out of shot, her mouth parted in interest, the light catching on her eyes and making them sparkle. The largest photograph showed her and Emil running through a shower of confetti, Hanna pinching the skirt of her dress as she ran, her new groom holding her hand and gazing back at her, both of them laughing. Emil had looked bigger back then, more muscular, his hair worn shorter. He didn’t look, in this image, like the man she knew, who seemed to choose his clothes on the basis of how close they were to collapse.

‘Nine years ago next month,’ he said, seeing her staring at them.

‘They’re beautiful. What a couple you –’ She hesitated, not sure of which tense to use: were? Are? Were they a couple again? Was Hanna having secret meetings with her own husband? Was that why she’d taken off her eternity ring from her other partner? She was the woman who had two eternities to choose between?

‘Best day of your life, was it?’ she asked lightly, retreating to cliché.

‘Just us, and a thousand of our closest friends.’ He made a disapproving tut as she came over. ‘No. I’d have been happy with the town hall, a bottle of champagne and a hotel room.’

‘Said every male ever,’ Bell murmured, handing him the glass.

‘Thanks.’ His fingers brushed hers as he took it from her and drank slowly. ‘. . . So, was it you who called her?’