Yes, that day had been wonderful. After they left the shop the day did not end; they did not part. She was certain when they walked out onto the street that he would hurry away, and she was ready for that — to turn and go her own way home alone — but Martin said, looking up and down the crowded, busy street, “I could stand a cup of tea. What about you, Delia? After all this exertion you’d like a nice cup of tea, wouldn’t you?” He was grinning at her, and then he said in a false, funny voice, “A nice cup of tea for the lady of the house?” Two or three times over the years, she had gone back to that tearoom, but the tables were always full, and so she had never gone in there again. The tea had been very good, and the cakes, and the girl had given them special attention, just as the man in the shop had done. And after tea they had gone for a walk, strolling around, looking in the shop windows, and when she reminded him of his appointment he said, “They can wait, I can see them anytime. But when will I get another chance to show you off like this?” It was strange that at the start of that long-ago day, when she got out of bed in the morning, she had not had a hint that she was seeing the beginning of a day that would never cease to unfold in her memory and that would always be waiting there, undimmed and undamaged, providing her with a place where her mind could rest and find courage.

Martin had given up sleeping in the big front bedroom, because she and the children got up early and disturbed him, moving about, and now he slept in the small room next to the bathroom, on the landing halfway up the stairs. Lately she had been hoping he would say something to her that would give them both a chance of a talk, but he had said nothing. She knew things were not as they should be between them, but while the children were at home she did not want to say anything for fear of a row that might frighten the children, and now that the children were away she found she was afraid to speak for fear of disturbing a silence that might, if broken, reveal any number of things that she did not want to see and that she was sure he did not want to see. Or perhaps he saw them and kept silent out of charity, or out of despair, or out of a hope that they would vanish if no one paid any attention to them.