He laughed frankly, rocking back on his chair, and the kitchen echoed like a cave. I shivered. This room was too big for two people. The whole house was too big for two people, come to that, but I always felt it most in the kitchen. It was a relic of olden times, when Byrne Hall was a bustle of servants. It was meant to be an engine room, bright with fire, foggy with steam, and filled from floor to ceiling with the clatter of feet, and the barking of orders, and the smells of roasting meat.

“Oh, Freya, I love you,” said Cory. “You’re so cautious and . . . I don’t know. What’s the word? Quaint.”

I prodded the pasta glumly with my spoon. It was chewy.

“I don’t think I’m cautious,” I retorted. “I wasn’t cautious when I chucked in my job to be with you.” I wasn’t going to argue with quaint; I didn’t want to hear what he meant by that.

“Don’t be like that. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” At least he was elated again. “I was thinking in terms of a few weeks. November? The end of October, even.”

I looked up.

“Oh, right. Wow!”

We both waited in case I was going to come up with anything more adequate, but I didn’t, so we bent our heads and ate. The silence was immense and the spoons resonated against our bowls like a chime of little bells.

The wind had got up. A herring gull hovered over the trees with its wings outstretched, struggling to steer a course. I think summer’s over, isn’t it? Maggie had said at the hospital, and she was right. Darkness permeated the air like a corrosive chemical, bleaching away colour and warmth. Cory was still downstairs, wading through his pasta, and I wondered how long it would be before he came to find me. He’d say, What are you doing here? I thought you were just going to the loo. And I wouldn’t know how to justify myself.

We had to have our first argument at some point, I accepted that, but it ought to have been a proper fight, with lots of noise and tears and sparks flying. It ought to have ended in peace. Whereas . . . what was this, exactly? What should I call it? Hardly a fight. More a slippage, or a misalignment. I didn’t know if it was over, or if it mattered at all, or if it was something I’d be wise to refer to again. I rubbed my goose-pimpled arms and lingered at the window.