“I don’t know,” I said. “You decide.”

The waitress came over and Tom ordered two bacon sandwiches and two coffees.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he observed when she’d gone. “Byrne Hall, that is.”

I nodded dully. I couldn’t decide whether the flowers in the little white vase were real or fake; it was hard to tell just by looking. I touched the tips of the pink carnation and felt the prickle of plastic.

“And thingummy seems pleasant enough. Cory.”

Pleasant. I almost managed a smile. There was something funny about the way Tom said beautiful and pleasant. He didn’t quite turn them into dirty words, but he made them sound suspect.

“What’s his mother like?”

“Not very well. Confused, I think.”

Tom nodded and kept on looking at me.

“So? Have you seen the painting again?”

“What painting?”

There was a newspaper lying on our table; a copy of this morning’s local rag. I turned the pages listlessly and read the upside-down headlines. They were all depressing. Husband Led “Double Life,” Court Hears. Bereaved Couple Plead for Justice. Motorist’s Tyres Slashed.

“The painting.” Tom leaned forward for emphasis. “The painting of Stella. The whole reason you came back.”

I pushed the newspaper away and the radio came on with Sunday Love Songs.

“Oh, that,” I said. “Sorry, I’d forgotten. There’s nothing much to tell. Cory met Stella in passing, a few weeks before she died. She let him sketch her, and he turned the sketch into a painting, which is presumably what I saw at the wedding.”

Tom was full of questions: “So Cory Byrne is an artist?” “Did he and Stella only meet the once?” “Did they talk?” “What was her mood like?” “Have you seen the painting again?” To which I replied: Yes, Yes, Not much, I don’t know, and No, in that order.

Every time I shifted slightly in my seat, I could hear the unfinished letter rustling in my pocket. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d written to Tom in the early hours, but I remembered the general mood of it. I know I’d threatened to chuck in my job at K&G and try my luck as a love-addled poet.

“Any sauces?” said the waitress who brought our order to the table, but I didn’t hear the question till she’d gone. Tom asked for ketchup. I wasn’t hungry anyway—the bacon sandwiches were all crust and grease and bulge. I cut mine in half and laid the knife down. The bread was pallid and floury, and it put me in mind of Lady Caroline Augusta Fitzroy-Byrne.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry about showing up like this, Freya. I don’t want you to think . . .”

“I don’t think anything.”

“We can still . . . We are still mates, aren’t we, you and me?”

“Yes.”

I managed a smile, because it was the least he deserved. One of the corners of the letter was poking out of my pocket, and I pressed it lightly, as if testing the point of a blade.