“I saw her but . . .” He sat down on the bed so that he was more on a level with me. “I think the shock somehow erased her image from my mind. This is the absolute truth, Yvette. The shock lasted a long time. It knocked me for six. I should have told you at the time instead of pretending that nothing was wrong. I know you tried to help me. I apologize. And I’m sorry, I still can’t remember her. I don’t know if I ever will.”

He said all this quickly and smoothly so that it came out all of a piece without a gap for me to interrupt into. I tried to absorb it all.

“You had all that love for her,” he was saying now. “And love left over for me, to help me. I refused to let you. I gave you nothing in return.”

I held out my arms. He came and embraced me. It was awkward with me sitting but that didn’t bother us. His stubble scraped my cheek and my hands felt the warmth of his back.

“But you have,” I murmured. “You have given me so much.”

That day, I moved Catherine’s little chest from its place on my dressing table to the bedroom bookshelf so that James could not see it from where he lay in bed. When we moved I did the same in this house too. I know he loves her. I don’t ask anything more of him.

—

One day we had some time to ourselves, we drove westward down the coast to Dorset, climbed the Golden Cap. It was grand on top of the headland, the great scalloping bays unrolling to the east and the sea a holidaymaker’s blue. I lay back on the grass.

I said, “I don’t think I’ll have another baby—”

“No, darling!” His face appeared above me, eyes so wide the whites showed all the way around. “We must keep hoping for another baby! We must! You can’t give up! I’ll do anything—”

“You know there’s only one thing you need to do.” I started to smile. “Or keep doing. James, I was going to say, ‘I don’t think I’ll have another baby until we move.’ I have a feeling it won’t happen while we’re at Alver Shore. So actually there is another thing you need to do. Find another post, somewhere else. Darling, we need to start again.”