“She loves Jane Austen,” laughed the hiking man. “She’s seen all her films. I’m more of a man’s man, if you know what I mean.”

Harold found himself nodding, although he had no idea what the man meant. He had never been what Maureen called the macho type. He had always avoided the big lock-ins with Napier and the chaps at the brewery. Sometimes it struck him as strange that he had worked all those years with alcohol, when it had played such a terrible part in his life. Maybe people were drawn to what they feared.

“We like Dartmoor best,” said the hiking man.

“You like Dartmoor best,” corrected his wife.

They looked at one another, as though they were complete strangers. In the pause that followed, Harold returned to his postcards. He hoped there wouldn’t be a row. He hoped they weren’t one of those couples who said in public the dangerous things they could not voice at home.

He thought again about the holidays in Eastbourne. Maureen would pack sandwiches for the journey, and they would arrive so early the gates were closed. Harold had always thought affectionately of those summers until recently when Maureen told him David referred to life’s low points as being as dull as bloody Eastbourne. These days of course Harold and Maureen preferred not to travel, but he was sure she was wrong about the holiday camp. They had laughed. David had found a playmate or two. There was the night he won the dancing. He had been happy.

“Dull as bloody Eastbourne.” Maureen hit the word so hard it sounded like an invasion of her mouth.

He was interrupted by the couple at the next table. They had raised their voices. Harold wanted to get away, but there appeared to be no safe slice of silence in which he might stand and excuse himself.

The woman who loved Jane Austen said, “Do you think it was funny cooped up here with a broken leg?” Her husband kept on looking at his map as if she had not spoken, and she continued to speak as if he was not ignoring her. “I never want to come here again.”

Harold wished the woman would stop. He wished the man would smile or take hold of her hand. He thought of himself and Maureen, and the years of silence at 13 Fossebridge Road. Had Maureen ever felt the impulse to say, where everyone could hear, such truths about their marriage? The thought had never occurred to him before, and was so alarming he was already on his feet and heading for the door. The couple didn’t seem to notice that Harold had gone.

♦