Romy gazed at him with a feeling almost of dread, because on Friday night she’d sensed the ties that bound her and Michael struggling to reassert themselves, felt the powerful pull of their history together. It was probably the least contentious, most intimate exchange we’d had in years, she thought. But she didn’t want to be intimate with her husband. She didn’t want to feel anything for him, except sympathy.

‘Nothing. I’m sorry. Just tired,’ she lied. But she saw from the cloud that flitted across Finch’s face that he didn’t entirely believe her. She shook herself and got up quickly, reaching for the wooden tray she’d propped against the wall. She wanted a moment to compose herself. ‘I know it’s utterly childish,’ she said, as she folded the remains of the cheese back into the waxed paper, ‘but I feel almost resentful that I have to witness what’s happening to Michael.’ It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was at least true.

Finch, dangling the empty wine bottle in one hand, the pepper mill in the other, gazed at her sympathetically, the doubt clearing from his eyes. ‘I imagine there’s nothing more painful to watch than the slog of rehab, Romy. Don’t beat yourself up for finding it hard.’

But Romy realized it wasn’t really Michael’s rehab she was objecting to – however hard. It was his dragging her back to memories of when they’d been happy together, when things had seemed so unambiguous between them. She worried that even touching on them, just allowing herself to remember, would trap her for ever, the past becoming her living present.

22

Daniel was standing beside Michael, holding him up, when Romy came into the bedroom on Monday morning. Leo had been almost pathetically pleased to see her the night before – disappearing from the flat, like a greyhound out of a trap, almost as soon as she got through the front door.

‘Morning,’ Michael said now. ‘You’re back.’

She nodded. He’d been asleep when she’d got in yesterday evening, and if he’d rung the bell in the night, she hadn’t heard him. There had not been a great deal of sleep going on with Finch the night before and she’d been dead to the world.

‘Yup.’ She moved across the room. ‘Can I help?’

Daniel – looking so fresh and clean and young in contrast to Michael’s grizzled appearance – hesitated. ‘I am going to shower him. But I think his medication is running out. I can go later to the surgery, if you will be here?’

‘No,’ Romy said quickly. ‘I’ll go. I’ll do shopping and stuff while I’m out.’ Any excuse to leave the flat. But she must have seemed too keen, because Michael gave her a quizzical look as Daniel began to walk him towards the bathroom.

‘What?’ she asked.