When did she start calling him Hugh?

“I walked into the bookshop in the village one day, looking for a book on Lee Harvey Oswald for a class I was teaching on 1960s American history. Behind the counter was an extremely pretty woman who had her nose buried deep in Wuthering Heights. So taken by the book was she that she didn’t even look up and I felt awful interrupting her to enquire about the book I was looking for. But needs must and I grabbed the bull by the horns, as it were, and ploughed straight ahead with my query. She didn’t have the book, but ordered it in and I made an excuse to go back to the shop every day for a week under the pretence of seeing if the book had arrived, but actually just to see her. I was like a dog with a bone, I tell you.” He chuckled, proud of himself.

He had certainly been persistent, Helen would give him that. Their courtship, as it were, was more a case of him wearing her down rather than sweeping her off her feet. There was nothing chest-heaving about their relationship, even back then in the early days.

Helen kept her eyes on the peas and chicken pie in front of her. She would be damned if she was going to make vegetarian food every time Diana was here.

“I think that’s very romantic,” Diana said. “I’ve seen your shop, Helen. It’s very… quaint.”

“It doesn’t need to be big and fancy for our village. There is a Waterstones in Padstow if people want a wider choice and, as Hugh says, I can order in any title someone is looking for. I prefer the cosy, intimate feel of my shop.” Helen tried to keep her voice light, but her teeth were biting off the ends of her words. Why had Diana not admitted to everyone that they had met in the shop? It would be very awkward for Helen to admit it now of course, so she would keep up the pretence for as long as Diana did, but it was certainly odd.

Helen changed the subject. “Mills, have you sorted out that nonsense with Olivia yet?”

“Nah, she’s still acting weird, but won’t tell me why. I’ve obviously done or said something, but if she doesn’t want to tell me, then there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I’m not losing sleep over it though. She gets like this sometimes. It’ll blow over. It’s probably got something to do with this new guy. It usually does.” Mills’ best friend, Olivia, had always been as changeable as the wind for as long as they had been friends, all the way back to when they were in nursery together. They reminded Helen of her friendships from school, all artifice and passive aggression, borne out of circumstance. Helen had tried to foster a friendship with Olivia’s mother when the girls were in nursery, but her heart hadn’t been in it and after a while she had let it fizzle out. Helen preferred her own company to that of others who would only want to get to know her – and there was a lot Helen didn’t want people to know. So she stuck to casual acquaintances rather than deep friendships, always keeping a safe distance.