“It’s you who’s kissed my soul awake, Alex. It had been hiding in near darkness all of my life, until you made me trust you. But I believe Will’s had a part to play too. For the first time my instincts have been to listen to my heart. He must have been a passionate person, and the great legacy of his heart wasn’t going to be happy in a cool place. If that’s just psychological, well, I’ll take that. For me it’s more than a pump. I think I can feel his”—she searched for some language to explain strange impressions—“joyance, at the end. He wasn’t hankering after anything, Alex; he isn’t haunting me. I feel him standing in clean air, somewhere high up. I feel his humor, right to the final moments. I was unafraid of death before; but he’s made me more unafraid of life.”

“Of the things you’ve said, the idea of Will’s irreverent wit to the last is the most persuasive.” Alex laughed at this; it appealed. “We often argued about one thing especially heatedly. Will placed himself with the Romantic poets, when it came to the idea of Newton. Keats—and Lamb, I think—argued that Sir Isaac had destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to a prism; and Will joined in their chorus, partly to test me. I’ve championed Newton’s vision all my life, and I still would now, but tonight you’ve made me reconsider it. Perhaps the heart isn’t only an organ. And maybe we need to hold on to a little bit of the goddess in the rainbow. See it as more than the sum of the parts.”

Alex now loosened the ties of Lucy’s soft cashmere ballet cardigan and placed his long fingers between her breasts with tender sensuality. He kissed her. “It’s wonderful to have you here with me.” And if “you” addressed more than one person, Lucy was equal to it.

THE IMAGE CAUGHT IN HIS SIDE MIRROR OF A MAN PASSING CLOSE TO HIS car in expensive designer jeans and a more expensive light corduroy jacket put Simon on the alert. He waited just a few more seconds, then swung out of the driver’s seat and door-stopped a totally unprepared Calvin. Leaping up a short staircase, he raised an arm ready to take a swing, but Calvin countered too quickly and held the surprisingly well-developed arm of his attacker at length.

“We can have this out right here if you like, but would it be better if you came inside?”

Simon was caught a little off guard. “I never had a brother, Calvin—there’s only my mother. Will Stafford was everything to me: and I have an uncomfortable conviction that you know something about his accident you haven’t mentioned yet.”