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gangly. She was five foot ten herself, with the same sort of frame, although more tidily held together, and all her movements were, unlike his, quick and decisive. She had the same disregard for appearances; her hair, streaked with grey, was chopped off in an uncompromising bob, pushed back behind her ears, her face was innocent of make-up. She wore a faded cotton skirt and a man’s shirt, though she’d omitted her usual big, enveloping sweater this morning in deference to the warm promise of the day. Her feet, in flat sandals, were almost as large as his. It was only her thick-lensed glasses that made any appreciable difference to their appearance.
    He nodded towards a pile of manuscript on the table, fresh from the typist. ‘Came this morning. That woman got a move on, for once.’
    â€˜Pleased with it?’
    â€˜As a first draft, it’s not bad.’
    In Francis-speak, this meant that he was. She picked the papers up, clipped together, neatly typed by Liz Fawcett, who was always quick and efficient, despite what Francis affected to believe, though they wouldn’t remain in that state of perfection for long. The first of many drafts, it would be scribbled over and rewritten six or seven times before Francis was satisfied with the result. He was such a clear thinker, it always astonished Hope that he needed to work over his material to such an extent – but Francis was a complex character, never as straightforward as he seemed, slow to anger but formidable when roused. Suppressing this unprofitable line of thought, she peered through her spectacles in order to read the title on the cover sheet: ‘The Cave and the Mountain: The importance of Symbolism in Mediaeval Iconography’. Francis was an authority on Byzantine art and had published several books on similar themes. Each one had made quiet ripples in the academic art world, but with this one she knew he was hoping to stir up more significant waves.
    â€˜They’re moving into Edwina Lodge today,’ she said, as she sipped her coffee. ‘The new people.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    He wasn’t really interested. He cradled the coffee mug in his huge hands as he drank, in between each large gulp reaching out for a couple of his favourite jammy dodgers, scrunching them in his strong teeth, impatient to get back to work. His gaze strayed to the prints spread out on his desk. They were all of icons – madonnas, saints, the Christ. The reds and golds of the Greek icons glowed against the soft, pure colours of the Russian ones. Our Lady of Vladimir shone out in blue. There were two copies of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. He went back to the desk and picked one up, studying it intently, back in his own world.
    â€˜A young couple,’ Hope said.
    And two little girls. She’d heard them calling out to each other as they played. Lucy and Allie (or some such) were their names, seemingly. She fervently wished there hadn’t been children. Weren’t they surrounded by too many of them already, in the Close? The summer holidays weren’t quite over and you couldn’t get away from them. We should have moved further away than just next door when the old house was sold, Hope thought, not for the first time – to the cottage, perhaps. But Francis hadn’t wanted to move permanently to Shropshire, it was too far from the reference library in Birmingham and the availability of trains to London for him; it would have meant her finding another job in another school...
    â€˜I wonder at them – taking on all that responsibility,’ she mused, her mind turning again to the new people. ‘All right for the Burger, she was used to it, but young people like that, they don’t usually take to that sort of thing ... Imogen says we should ask them over for drinks.’
    â€˜What?’ She had his attention now. An almost panic-stricken look crossed his face, to be replaced by the sort of stubbornness