He looked up and sprang to his feet. ‘That’s great. I’d given you twenty more minutes, and then I was going to try again another day.’

A scuffle from the basket broke an embarrassed pause. ‘What have you got there?’

‘If you let me in, I’ll show you.’

In the hall, he put down the basket and opened it. ‘Come here. It’s a present.’

I knelt down on the cold tiles, looked inside and felt my heart squeeze: it was a tiny cat, as rippled and tawny as a jungle creature. I put out a finger, touched its head – and once again I was pacing the house, holding my shouting babies, while a cat drowsed on the shelf above the radiator.

‘Abandoned,’ Hal explained. Amanda, my ex-wife, found it in the road. But I’m afraid its leg has been injured at some point and healed badly, so it’s not very mobile.’

The cat had allowed me to touch it, but I sensed this was not a compliant spirit. Its yellow-green eyes had the bold stare of a vagrant used to living off its wits. This was an animal that would require time and guile to woo and tame.

I looked up at Hal. ‘I miss Parsley more than I can say.’

‘You can have it, if you want it.’ He hunkered down beside me. ‘Poor little guy.’

We carried it into the half-dismantled kitchen and tried to settle it. Its injury hampered its movements, but after several bouts of spitting and arching its back, it curled up on an old jumper of mine and went to sleep.

Hal put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Rose?’ He was asking permission. To push past the exchange of information to more weighty things? I did not know, and I did not know what I would ask him in return.

His hand tightened on my shoulder. ‘You look well.’

‘I am.’ I noted his expensive-looking trousers and jacket. ‘And you look prosperous.’

Actually,’ he said, ‘I’ve come to ask you something.’

There was a new jar of honey on the table. I picked it up and put into the cupboard. Suddenly I felt as awkward as a schoolgirl. ‘Why don’t you stay and have some supper? I could do pasta. Then you can ask me.’

‘I should take you out.’

I shut the cupboard door. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t mean it.’

‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘I would. But would you mind if I phoned Amanda? She was half expecting me. Don’t worry, she won’t mind. And her husband certainly won’t.’

While Hal was phoning, I whisked round the kitchen, making a carbonara sauce, boiling the pasta, laying the table, and I happened to glance up at the garden.

It was far less tidy, with an unfamiliar sprawling and rambling dimension, but the Marie Boisselot had assembled a whole dinner service of white plate-like blooms.

‘What are you thinking?’ Hal had come back into the room.

The lilac blossom was heavy and abandoned-looking, the Solanum romped over the trellis and the buds on the Iceberg by the window looked promising. ‘That I will plant my next garden with a bit more colour. I shall do it differently.’

Hal peered outside, but he knew nothing of the white period. One day I might tell him. The notion lit a spark of interest, excitement, even. I made him sit down, gave him a glass of wine and hunted around in the half-packed-up kitchen for bowls.

‘Amanda’s pleased you’ll take the cat.’

I busied myself draining the pasta and mixing in the sauce. ‘How long were you married?’

Hal sat down at the table. ‘Nine years. Amanda’s a good, patient person, but even she couldn’t take the absences. Anyway, she found Edward and is very happy.’

‘Did you mind?’ I put a plate in front of him, and sat down.

‘Yes, I did. Very much.’ His eyes met mine. ‘I was a fool.’

I concentrated on forking up the pasta. I did not wish to put everything into pigeon-holes – good, bad, indifferent – but it was important to me that Hal minded about the failure of his marriage.

‘I seem to specialize in being a fool, Rose, don’t I?’

My fork assumed a life of its own and clattered back on to the plate. ‘Meaning?’

Pushing the plate aside, Hal placed his hands on the table. He cleared his throat. ‘Let’s get this over and done with. I haven’t ever been able to say sorry that you lost the baby and for the way I treated you. It’s something I have wanted to do. Now, I can.’

At the first turning of the second stair

I turned and saw below

The same shape twisted on the banister…

I hesitated to discuss this subject. I could not bear for us to dissect it into the small and tame. ‘I should never have agreed to go with you, Hal, but I was sick with love, and I didn’t think. I didn’t know the dangers. I was ignorant.’

‘At least I should have looked after you better. I shouldn’t have left you in Quetzl, however hard you begged. I thought it was the right thing, that it showed we’d taken proper decisions. But it wasn’t very adult.’

My eyes locked on to his. At the time it was… the solution.’

Hal made no effort to touch me, and I think he wanted to bridge the gap between us, but that was right: we needed to air this subject without distraction. ‘I’m sorry, so very sorry. I’ve never forgiven myself for leaving you like that. In that scuzzy hotel where you could have picked up a terrible disease. You were sick, and needing attention. But I was so desperate not to… determined to do the work on the Yanomami. I couldn’t get over the transition from a love affair to something that threatened to pin me down, and I could only think about myself. So I made the choice.’

‘It was my choice, too,’ I offered, but my voice was not quite under control.

‘Yes, but it’s a proper, better life if we can think about ourselves and take on board others. Or one other. Am I forgiven?’

The telephone began to ring, but I ignored it. Eventually it gave up and the silence in the kitchen was shattering. I smiled at Hal. ‘I forgave you years ago. I had to, otherwise I could not have continued to be married to Nathan. I had to be clear of you to live with him. I pushed you to the back of my mind and got on with another life.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘No. Never. I’ve been very happy. And I didn’t want it to end. But it has.’

The answer seemed to please him, and he nodded. The blue eyes were still like gentians, a rich surcote, the colour of peace and resolution.

He nudged his glass. ‘Tell me more.’

If becoming older meant loss, the loss of childhood, magic and belief, and the first flush of desire and faith, then it also gave back something unexpected. For as Hal and I continued to talk, and shaped the past into comprehensible slabs, desire reignited its lick and burn, and an old hunger and belief stirred. I was not dead. I was not finished. Neither was I invisible, nor beaten. And fresh air was blowing through the habit and expectation.

Some time later, I do not know how much later, we had talked out what we had done in the past, and what we planned for the future. Hal’s took in Namibia (again), the Yanomami (again), and the Umbrian olive farm. Mine was to rebuild my work (on different terms), earn a living, and make a new home.

‘I must go,’ he said, at last. ‘When can I see you again? Why don’t you come over to my flat?’ He smiled. ‘There are no ghosts.’ He shrugged on his jacket. ‘Or come to the farm before summer takes hold. It’s at its best then.’

With his hand on the door, he paused. ‘I’m glad I took the risk and came here.’

It took me some time to get to sleep but when I did I dreamt of floating through sunlit air, as light and unfettered as a feather drifting from an angel’s wing.

When I made it downstairs the next morning, the cat was still curled on the jumper, but I sensed it was defensive and unsettled. At my entrance, it raised its head, and its fur was as soft and golden as you could wish. I rustled up a cat meal from a packet of Parsley’s favourite biscuits, which still lurked in the cupboard, and some warmed-up gravy. I told it that it was a beautiful creature, and it listened.

It went back into the cat basket without too much trouble but protested when I let myself out of the house and down Mr Sears’ steps.

‘Is that you, Betty?’ he called.

The weather was growing warm, and the room was stuffy. Even so, Mr Sears had retreated under his rugs. He looked so small and beaten by life and his disabilities, and he was crying, copiously and silently. I knelt beside him and put the basket on the bed.

‘Mr Sears, I’ve brought you something. A present.’

‘If it’s from the council, send it back.’

I opened the basket, and the cat favoured me with a green glint. ‘You be good,’ I lectured it. ‘Know which side your bread is buttered.’

I eased it out and placed it on Mr Sears’ lap. ‘A good home is wanted, and I wondered if you would like to give it. It needs a bit of looking after because it’s been injured. If you would like it, Mr Sears, I’ll take it to Keith and get him to check it over.’

Mr Sears gave a great cry, and his hands scooted over the rug. The cat tensed, reared its head and transferred its attention from me to the tearstained Mr Sears.

He extended a finger with its horny nail. ‘Lie down,’ he ordered – against every rule of cat training. By some miracle, the cat merely arched its back, adjusted its stiff leg and did as it was told.

Mr Sears looked triumphant. ‘Some things never leave you.’

I backed into the kitchen. By the time I emerged, the cat had settled on the bed and it and Mr Sears were conducting an ongoing conversation in ‘stomach talk’, as the Japanese would have it. They took no notice of me.

I rang Hal. ‘I’ve given the cat away,’ I confessed. ‘Someone needed it more than I did but also…’

‘Yes?’

‘It would have been a going back. It would be trying to relive a stage that has gone. I’m not sure I can explain it. I’m sorry. I hope you’re not offended.’