She cut short his reply. “Alex, it’s my birthday today.” She stopped for a moment, and Alex started to apologize for forgetting and wished her a happy day in a pleasant voice. She continued quickly: “No, Alex, listen to me. I’ve just received some absolutely beautiful roses.” She broke off again, wondering what to say. Alex waited, not knowing what he should say, until she added: “The card says…They’re from Will, Alex. The damn things are from Will.”

10

DRIZZLING WEATHER HAD GIVEN WAY, AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER, TO A fortnight of stark October sunshine that suited the new clarity in Lucy’s world. She had been warned about the probable depression that would follow her operation; none had occurred. She had understood that she might feel—apart from overall soreness—a lethargy that permeated her physical energies; but this had eluded her. Even the hair growth that commonly developed as a by-product of her drugs hadn’t yet become a problem. She was walking around a little within three days, and was home in ten to the Edwardian mansion flat in Battersea she shared with her best friend, the lithe and long-limbed Grace.

They were both young television producers, and worked long hours in strange places. Grace’s job was in light entertainment, which suited her permanently cheerful personality—though she was a bigger talent than this suggested, with a top honors degree in history from Durham, wasted for the present. But she was a vital part of Lucy’s life, had known her almost since her arrival in London, aged twenty-one, when she had set sail for the wide world from her cocooned existence in Sydney’s beach suburbs, fresh from university. Lucy’s degree was in sociology, but her work as a producer/director of documentaries had taken her into the realms of anthropology and even the natural world. When a project had sent her first to the backwaters of Peru, then on to Colombia, a strange illness had followed her home, and it was the canny Grace who took serious notice and hounded her friend to get it checked.