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they had both willed the same outcome. Fifteen years of harmony had followed, and if she was puzzled that they had not changed her, had in fact left her as they found her, so that Henry was a memory only, she bore the absence uncomplainingly, and was more at home with those phantom Sundays before the advent of Henry, seeing quite clearly the leaves falling in the park, and turning her steps quite contentedly towards home.
    It was still very hot. The light had almost faded, signalling the last hours of liberty before the working week began again. She would make coffee, she decided, take a cool bath. Then the night could begin, and if she were lucky unexpected images would surface. She could be young again, the only reasonable wish at her age. Once she had distinctly recaptured the appearance of a dress she had worn when she was fourteen. She might see her parents, no longer ailing, as they had been so often in their lives, but smiling their placid smiles as they offered her tea and cake. She was not disconcerted by this process, did not confound it with the onset of senility. Rather it was her pastime since Henry had left her. His memory was evanescent now, as evanescent as she was herself, yet somehow she must pursue her course to the end, whatever that would be.
    When the telephone rang, a little later than usual, she noticed that it was almost dark.
    ‘Good evening, Kitty,’ she said. ‘And how are you this week? And Austin? Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Perhaps the hot weather doesn’t agree with him. Yes, very hot today.’
    There followed the ritual medical bulletins, the news of married friends and familiars, and a reminder, yet again, that they would be going away for three weeks in ten days’ time. This took just over seven minutes. At the end, like an orchestral conductor embarking confidently on the final bars, she said, ‘Yes, I’m perfectly fine, dear. My love to you both. Until next week. Goodbye.’

Absence makes the heart grow fonder; prolonged absence makes the heart grow cold. In these latter days Mrs May was at ease only with strangers, to whom she appeared affable, released from the anxiety that something—anything—might be required of her. When she ate her lunch at the Italian café she was always gratified to see the owner’s old father sitting by himself at a far table, with a carafe of wine in front of him. They understood each other perfectly. To the owner, Giorgio, certain questions had to be put: his health, the health of his wife, Paola, the health of his two daughters, and of course of the little grandson. She was then allowed to eat her pasta salad in silence. To the owner’s father she waved a hand on entering; he briefly semaphored back. She knew that it had broken his heart to give up the restaurant when he was no longer as quick on his feet as he once had been. He was the first to notice that he had reached the age when retirement was not simply a matter of discretion but of necessity.
    Yet he could not keep away. Every day he sat at his table, with his carafe of wine, simply in order to watch the customers, to note if a regular were absent. No-one paid muchattention to him; in his careful suit he might have been a normal diner. But Mrs May felt for him. She knew, because he had once told her, that when he went home, at about half-past three, he would see no-one until the following lunchtime. After he had taken note of the fact that she had finished her meal he would come over to her and shake her hand. ‘Everything all right?’ he would enquire. The larger question remained unanswered. She would invite him to sit down but he preferred to stand, his body curved in a waiter’s deferential stoop. ‘And you?’ she would ask. He would shrug, as if the evidence were there to see, in his sparse grey hair, his carefully trimmed grey moustache. He had grown stout, stiff, yet he still had the suave manners of the professional restaurateur. ‘Changes,’ he would sigh, indicating a young