“No. Well, I sort of do, for work and so on. I don’t usually like them.” He smiled, shy and unsure.

Ruby took a step backward. It was dangerous being this close to him. He might be technically single, but he was tangled up in something nevertheless, with Constance and the child. She didn’t want to get involved. Despite this, her body responded to him. It had been so long since she’d been touched.

“Why don’t you like them?” she asked, leading the way out of the darkened kitchen and into the harsh, unforgiving light of the bed-sitting room.

He shrugged. “Most people are paste, that’s why.”

“Paste?”

“Oh, you know. Sort of gray and uninteresting. Or pretending to be something they’re not.”

“Huh.”

“But you’re not, Ruby. You shine.”

She blushed, and not knowing what to say, she said nothing. She didn’t feel shiny. She felt, if she were honest, like paste. Ruby stood there awkwardly, leaning against the wall nearest the door. Gregor walked the few steps to the window and looked out.

“I’ve got a weird thing to ask. You can say ‘no.’”

“Oh, okay. What is it?”

“I wanted to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind … not talking about us to anyone?”

“Why would I talk to anyone about you?” she said, thinking, I don’t really talk to anyone, about anything, right now.

He grew serious then. “I meant about Constance, really. And Leonie. No one can know they’re there with me.”

“Why not?”

“It’s hard to explain, but because of her background … there are a few legal issues. To do with Leonie.”

“What?”

“Nothing bad. Only that, since Leonie came along, I’ve been helping Constance manage her mental health. The agoraphobia, and the … other stuff.”

She thought of her own GP, the antidepressants she was supposed to be taking. That look in Constance’s eye, the volatility she sensed, a firework about to blow. “So, I’m assuming she hasn’t seen anyone about it?”

He shook his head, no. “If it got much worse, I’d have to think about it. But right now we’re doing okay, I think. I don’t want anyone getting involved. Doctors, Social Services, or whatever. You understand.”

“But if she’s unwell, wouldn’t it be better if she got treated?”

He sat down slowly on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands. “Would it, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“I hear what you’re saying. But once you start down that road … I just look at Leonie and I think, how terrible it is for a child to grow up without a mother.”

Gregor’s back was hunched, his eyes in shadow. He drew in a breath and let it out slowly, but she could hear the slight tremor, the emotion in it.