She opens her front door, ushering me past her into a shadowed hallway ornamented only with a prayer chair, the kind with a tall back and a low seat to be knelt on. When she closes the door, what little light there was disappears and she’s almost hidden in the darkness. I can only see the shape of her face and her hair falling over her shoulders and her hand, held out to take my coat. I put the bread down on the prayer chair and divest myself with a lot of rustling and loud breathing and general barbarism.

She picks up the loaf, which still smells lovely. “Thank you,” she says, brushing past me. “Come this way.”

“Ellen, if I’m disturbing you, please say.”

She doesn’t answer, so all I can do is follow her. This reserve, this quiet voice, is terribly unnerving.

She leads me into her sitting room—“Do sit down”—and goes on through the next door. As it opens I glimpse a kitchen clock on the wall. One of the kind known as railway clocks.

Logs are burning in the grate and heat comes in a wave from the nearest radiator. I pull off the thick sweater Tom made for me, attempt to smooth my hair and my shirt. I feel crumpled and untidy, even more so because the room is so peaceful and modestly furnished. There’s a piano, but no music on it. A couple of silver cigarette boxes on the mantelpiece. A beaten copper coal scuttle by the fire.

“Your blood has thinned,” I say, when she comes back in with a tray of buttered slices of bread.

She sets out the plates with slender golden-brown hands, gives me another of these polite responsive smiles I’m beginning, heart-sinkingly, to get used to. “I have to stoke up the heating when Edward comes to stay. Now I know why. I suppose I might stop shivering by the summer solstice.”

“I hope so.” My laugh is forced.

“I’m sorry, you must be far too hot.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” Her eyes gleam. “You’re living up at Corey’s Farm. You must be sweltering in here.”

“Yes, I am hot. And I’m also very, very glad to see you. Ellen, I—”

Next door, the boiling kettle emits a keening whistle. She leaps up and disappears into the kitchen.

—

“Very good,” she pronounces, chewing. “Is this Tom’s first go?”

“No.” I sip my tea. “He started during the bread strike.”

“There’s been a bread strike?”

“Yes, back in December. Shortly after you left for the Far East.”

“I’ve certainly missed some major events.” She looks up at me thoughtfully. “You, for instance. Something’s happened to you, I can see now. Something wondrous.”

“The best of all possible things.”

“God?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She gives me a genuine, delighted smile. “I’m very glad.”