But Colin danced so well and directed Penny so gently that her rhythm and movement gradually started coming back to her.

‘This is so much fun!’ she laughed, boogieing unashamedly, and Colin grinned. She was enjoying just kicking back, letting loose as if she hadn’t a care in the world. It had been a long time since she’d done so.

She caught sight of Rob sitting at a table near the back of the pub, talking with a young woman with short dark hair. He caught her eye and mimed shock. He had never seen her dance around the place like that. Penny wondered who the girl was; she hadn’t seen her before. A tourist, probably. Rob was always a great man for tourists. The impermanence of it suited him, she guessed. No real chance of a lasting relationship. Thinking of Elle’s departure, her heart ached for him yet again. She couldn’t imagine that her sister had said goodbye to him when she’d barely done so to Penny.

For the rest of the evening, Penny was able to push all thoughts of the hotel out of her mind. She hadn’t had so much fun in – well, since she was a child, probably. She looked back over the years and saw that she had always been worrying about something, her father, leaving her parents behind, whether she’d ever find someone to love her for who she was. But what was the point of that? Things were going to happen as they were meant to. Maybe it wasn’t always what you hoped for, but that’s how life went.

But when the night was ending, and Penny and Colin drove back home, the mere sight of the hotel filled her with sadness once more.

It looked like it was gently sagging in regret, as if the building itself knew their short-lived renewed hopes had sadly come to nothing.

Chapter 18

The storm her father had hinted at actually hit when Elle was about fifteen minutes from landing at Heathrow. And when it hit, it seemed like it was going to sweep the plane clean out of the sky. With each shudder of the aircraft’s interior, passengers gasped and moaned. There was no relief to be had from the flight attendants, as they were safely strapped into their seats. Elle had the sudden realisation that airplanes weren’t altogether as sturdy as they looked, and it didn’t seem all that unlikely that this one could be torn open like a packet of crackers.