Secretly, she’s thrilled that Rob has been so honest with her, admitted to such fragility. It’s a sign that he trusts her, no longer feels obliged to be the strong one all the time. She will ask him about it again when he’s unwound from London. Diplomatically, of course. Tomorrow they’ll walk the coast path and swim, have coffee at their favourite café overlooking the harbour. She starts to drift off to sleep, warmed by the prospect.

And then she’s awake again. Her eyes spring open in the darkness, the sound of blood pulsing in her ears. Rob always insists that he sleep on the right side of the bed. He’s a creature of habit, of quotidian routine. Tonight he’s lying on the left. Should she prod him? Check he’s not been replaced by his double? Relax. She’s being silly. It’s just another sign that Rob’s loosening up, going with the flow a bit more. She rolls over, searching for sleep again. He might be helping her to recover, but she’s doing him some good too.

Saturday

3

Kate

Kate’s up early the next morning, trying to paint Stretch on his bed. It’s not easy as he follows her every time she walks over to the sideboard to make a tea. She loves this room, a vast atrium of a kitchen, one end of which she uses as a studio. The room doesn’t face north, but there’s so much glass that it feels like she’s painting en plein air.

The sea below the house is as still as a millpond this morning, like a painting, streaked with cyans and ceruleans and framed by a high cirrus sky. In the distance, Gull Rock stands sentinel off Nare Head, the headland where she walks with Stretch, who loves to dart along the hidden paths between the yellow-flowering gorse.

Rob will be back soon, answering emails, making calls. No boundaries, never stops. She’s a fine one to talk, trying to paint on a Saturday morning.

‘It’s just not happening, weenie toes,’ she says to Stretch, who lifts his head from his bed at the sound of her voice. She puts her brush down and clutches her mug of tea, studying the canvas, trying not to panic. It will come back. Rob is certain.

She picks up the canvas to show to Stretch. ‘What do you reckon? Can you see yourself?’ She moves the picture around like a hairdresser with a mirror. ‘No? More like a guinea pig, you think? A piglet?’

She looks at the canvas again and places it back on the easel. ‘I see what you mean,’ she says, throwing a snort in his direction.