A housewarming present—a pair of oven gloves. How did she know I haven’t got any? “Just what I needed! I keep burning my fingers.”

It’s true. My egg pan has a spitefully conductive metal handle.

“They’re the best kind. I buy them from the Women’s Institute market.”

She’s perfectly easy in herself, agreeable, blooming. Her eyes resting lightly on me.

“You don’t come to church,” I blurt, like the imbecile I’ve apparently become in the last six seconds.

She shakes her head, not remotely put out. “I’m afraid it would be lip service only for me, Reverend Acton.”

“Please,” I beg her. “Call me James.”

“James. I don’t mean to offend. I’m getting to be rather a pagan these days.”

“Happens to a lot of women your age.”

This is Frobisher’s revenge, surely. I reject him in person and, using some arcane archidiaconal power, he renders me incapable of normal conversation. I fight the urge to turn on my heel, find the nearest cupboard, and get someone to lock me inside it until she’s gone, that way preventing me from speaking another word to her today. This is the only way she’ll ever be persuaded to talk to me again.

“Kindly explain!” she demands, eyes sparking, thoroughly amused.

Agonized, I do so, feeling hot in Tom’s heavy new jersey, wishing I had something more than blue lemonade to sustain me. “Sorry. I meant that people can get to a point where . . .” Where what? “Where the received wisdoms don’t satisfy them anymore. And women see more of life than men. Often they see too much. So it happens more to them.”

I realize I believe every word I’ve said.

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, yes. Men have this great capacity for busyness. Minutiae. The behavior of machines, and so forth. They don’t look up, and so they miss things.”

My heart is at last slowing down somewhat, thank goodness.

“What an intriguing idea.” She does look up at that point, at the ceiling—hopefully not too closely, as I swiped at it with a broom yesterday night—as she considers it. Then back at me. “Reverend, I’m assuming this story about Germans chasing you through the woods isn’t just a fantasy of Althea’s?”

Clive, it seems, has supplied plenty of details. “They actually trod on me one time,” I tell her. “And I felt insufficiently like a pine log.”

Insufficiently like a pine log. Why am I making a joke? Nothing about it was remotely funny.

“What on earth made you keep trying to escape?”

That’s easier to answer. “It was my duty.” I indicate her half-empty cup of children’s punch. “Let me get you a proper drink.”

She hands me the cup with a broad smile. “And a sausage roll, please.”