“Ellie?”

I jumped at his voice behind me and turned. “Joe—what are you doing here?”

“What do you think? I’ve come to see you. But what on earth have you been up to? You look—” He stopped, staring at me with a kind of fascination. “Extraordinary,” he said finally.

“Oh, nothing. I just went out and it started pouring with rain,” I said feebly. I didn’t really want to talk about my day, not even to Joe.

“You’ve got blood all over your face.”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing. It probably looks worse than it is because of the rain. Do you want to come in?”

“Just for a minute.”

I managed to get the door open and we stepped into the hall. I pulled off my mud-caked boots and struggled out of my jacket, then stood dripping on to the floor.

“Here,” said Joe. “It’s not important but I thought you’d want this. It was in the kitchen and we missed it.”

He’d brought me Greg’s favorite mug. It had the photograph of him finishing his marathon last year printed on it, although repeated washing had faded the image. I took it from Joe and looked at it, at Greg’s triumphant, exhausted smile. I’d met him afterward and put my arms around his sweaty body and kissed his sweaty face and his salty lips.

“And I wanted to check if there was anything I could do for the funeral.”

“You probably just wanted to check, full stop,” I said.

He smiled ruefully at me. “Well, I can see you’re taking excellent care of yourself. Go and have a bath.”

“I’ll do that.”

“While you’re at it, can I do anything for you? Tidy up a bit or make you a warm drink?”

“That’s kind of you, but no thanks.”

“Ellie?”

“Yes?”

“You’re all right?”

“What? Yes. You know.”

“You’ll tell me if you’re not?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Eight

Afterward, I remembered the funeral only as a collection of random moments, all of them bad. We had been told we had to arrive five minutes before the eleven thirty start because there were funerals before and afterward. So, we found ourselves standing outside the north London crematorium waiting for our turn. We were a collection of old friends, family members, hovering, not quite sure what to say or do. I noticed people recognizing each other, breaking into a smile, then remembering they were at a funeral and forcing sadness on to their faces.