“If you ever want someone to talk to . . .”

“I’ve talked enough. I just go over and over the same things. There’s nothing left to say that I haven’t said already.”

“Are you all right for money?”

“What?”

“Money,” he repeated. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, I think. As far as I know. I haven’t gone through everything. I’ve let things slide. Greg and I weren’t big savers, but we didn’t spend much either.”

“I can give you some. Lend,” he corrected himself hastily. “If there’s a cash-flow problem.”

“That’s good of you. But I’ll be all right.”

The car pulled up outside my house. I went to kiss his cheek but he turned his face and, before I had a chance to pull away, kissed me on the lips. I pushed him away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m kissing you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my friend. And you were Greg’s friend. And you’re married to Alison. Who knows what you get up to behind her back? But not with me.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said, with a groan that was also a half-laugh. “I don’t know what came over me. You’re a lovely woman.”

“Do you pounce on every lovely woman?”

He held up his hands in mock-surrender, trying to make it into a joke. “Just the ones I can’t resist.”

“Poor Alison,” I said, and saw a flash of anger cross his face.

“Alison’s fine. We have a good marriage.”

“I’m going to forget it happened,” I said. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I won’t. Sorry, sweetheart.”

I looked at him as if he were a strange, exotic specimen I’d observed. “Is it easy?”

“What?”

“To have an affair and then go home at night.”

“You make it sound as if I do it all the time.”

“Do you?”

“Of course not! You know me.”

“What about at the moment? Is there anyone?”

“No!” But something in his voice, in his expression, told me he was lying.

“Come on, Joe—who?”

“No one.”

“I know there is. Is she married?”

“You’ve got a one-track mind. Ever since Greg died, you’ve been on the lookout for adultery and deception.”

“Someone from work? Someone I know? It is, isn’t it?”

“Ellie.” He was half laughing, as if this was a great joke.

“Oh, God, I know who it is.”

“This is ridiculous. I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“It’s Tania, isn’t it?”

“No!”

“Joe?”

“It’s nothing, I promise. But she’s so young and eager.”

“Oh God, Joe,” I said. I felt anger well inside me as I gazed at his handsome, rugged face, his smiling mouth. “She’s half your age.”

“Maybe that’s the point, Ellie,” he said. “And maybe you should stop judging everyone.”

“I don’t.”

“You do, and I understand why.”