Like their marriage, the living room of their home blended the historic and the contemporary. There were many ornately framed portraits on the walls, all of which looked like antiques and made Simon think of words like “ancestry” and “lineage,” but the large red, green and white rug covering the stone-flagged floor had a modern, jagged pattern on it that was as ugly as it was cleverly designed: the effect was rather as if someone had dropped red and green glass onto solid ice from a great height. Simon wouldn’t have believed it possible to render such a thing in wool if he hadn’t seen it firsthand.

He wondered how soon he could replace the wedding picture on the mantelpiece between and in front of half a dozen framed photos of Paula’s son, Toby. This mantelpiece had a two-tier display system; indeed, the whole room suggested that Fergus and Paula were passionate about partially covering things with other things. All three sofas and the two chairs had throws draped over them, and on one there was a large golden-haired dog asleep on top of a smaller black-and-white dog. Simon could see that they were different types, but didn’t know the name of either; he’d never had a pet and knew nothing about dogs apart from the fact that Dalmatians had spots.

There were blinds at the windows with only their central portions visible behind the swags and pelmets of the curtains. Wherever there was a cushion, there was a smaller one, if not two, leaning against it. Near the door, there was a nest of three rectangular wooden coffee tables with intricate carvings on their legs, tucked in one beneath the other. They looked too old and heirloomy for the slamming down of mugs of instant Nescafé. On the surface of the top table were magazines in a fanlike arrangement, covering other magazines. Simon could see the beginnings of many titles: Country Li, Vog, Bucki, Horse &, Psycholo. Only one title was fully visible: Private Eye.

The color scheme was one Simon couldn’t have lived with for more than a couple of days without wanting to set fire to the room: as many shades as possible, as bright as possible, all jumbled up together. One of the throws was an almost luminous tangerine orange. The cushions were red, turquoise, lime green. Bright pink for the curtains, yellow for the blinds. Confronted with a color clash on this scale, one could hardly blame the ancestors on the walls for their haughty, disapproving expressions; sallow-skinned and muted, they were the outsiders in the room, and Simon identified with them more than with any living person present.