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‘Evening, Alex, darling.’

‘Matthew! I’ve been wondering why I haven’t heard. Are you still in Bristol?’

‘No . . . no, I, er . . . find myself in London,’ he said, blowing a soft gust of a laugh that sounded vaguely guilty to her ear.

‘London?’ She cleared her throat, dialling down the magnitude of her disappointment. ‘Good grief, Matthew,’ she tried again in a feigned tone of reason. ‘That wasn’t in the plan, was it? Why do you need to be in the capital?’

He sighed and she knew it was for her benefit, could conjure his familiar frowning expression as he did so, full of apology. And she hated herself for imagining the wheels of his mind turning towards an easy excuse. ‘My father needed me to see to some things. It was easier just to head south, darling, and get it all fixed at once instead of lumbering around from long distance or making several trips. You aren’t cross, are you?’

‘Matthew, it’s been nearly a fortnight. Are you still home tomorrow?’

‘No, my love. Probably Thursday now.’

Her silence conveyed her dismay loudly enough.

‘Hmm, you are upset, Alex. This is work. I can’t help it,’ he lamented. ‘But I hate that disappointed tone. Reminds me of my mother.’

She glanced at the clock. The tall hand had moved. Time flies when you’re having fun, a small voice in her mind mocked her. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, breathing out as she said it. ‘It’s just, well, I don’t seem to see much of you these days. Your work seems to have tripled since we married.’

‘Darling, I did try to warn —’

‘Do you know,’ she began, her voice even now, ‘I counted up last week on a calendar how many days we’ve had together in the last six months and in total it is less than one month . . . just over three weeks – twenty-three days, if you’d like me to be precise.’ She could take him back a whole year but that might be classed as being petty.

‘Really?’ He didn’t sound guilty, more bored, if she was interpreting his tone correctly. ‘That’s dreadful, I agree. I shall fix it darling, really I shall. I’m going to speak with my father tonight, in fact, and explain how damnably demanding all this work for the firm is. Big house, lovely life and all that but, really, is it worth it, darling?’

Her lips pursed into a line of defeat that he would use this passive type of blackmail.

‘I think we need a lovely holiday somewhere, don’t we? Somewhere warm, although nowhere is easy to get into, my love, so soon after war, or I’d whisk you off to Nice or the Isle of Capri. Anyway, we’ll talk soon and sort something out.’

She couldn’t pursue this line of conversation now with him. He was already retreating from it. ‘Matthew, I have company tonight, a Mr Harry Blake from London.’ She explained what she knew of him as she had done earlier to her parents, adding again that she felt she should offer to help him out of duty to a returned soldier. She’d even begun to believe that rationale and was able to entirely push aside that heart-pounding feeling of helpless attraction to him.

‘I hope he’s terribly old and ugly,’ Matthew replied.

‘He’s not, actually. Quite the contrary.’ She was surprised how powerful it felt in that tick of the clock to respond so candidly.

‘Should I be jealous, darling?’

It was transparently obvious that her husband was a long way from jealousy. ‘I’ve never given you cause, have I?’ She knew it didn’t answer the question but this was precisely how Matthew would have answered such an enquiry.

‘I should think not! I adore you,’ he replied, ‘and I may have found something rather lovely for you today in London.’

She forced a smile but as charmed as she so badly wanted to feel, his absence was beginning to make her feel hollow and, more worryingly, cheated. ‘I’d rather just have you home.’

‘I know, darling, but needs must, eh? Oh, look, I have to go. Coming, Hugh, coming.’

‘Are you at the club?’

‘Yes, just setting up for a game of chess with one of the old blokes, says he knows your father – so I feel a bit obliged, you know.’

She didn’t want to hear the lie that she finally allowed herself to believe was there, except she didn’t know what she was privately accusing him of. He was working, surely? And yet there was subterfuge; her instincts were convinced of it. ‘Oh, well, off you go. I hope the work goes smoothly.’

‘Righto. Chin up, darling. I’ll see you Thursday.’

She heard the line go dead with an empty click and then a dull ringing sound that seemed to summarise her marriage at present. Replacing the receiver, she sighed and paced in a blur of lonely thoughts. Jealous, indeed! Perhaps she should give him something to feel jealous over. The doorbell sounded and she’d never welcomed interruption so happily, hurrying out of the room, barely time to check her hair that was always trying to escape its pins.

‘It’s fine, Norma. I can get it,’ she reassured and waved the servant to the back rooms of the house.

She could see Harry’s welcome outline through the glass panels at the side of the grand entrance, took a deep breath and opened the door with a bright smile. ‘Mr Blake,’ she gushed, being formal more for the housekeeper if she eavesdropped, but genuinely pleased to see him again and frightened by how the sight of him banished her bleak mood. ‘Welcome to the Grange.’