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Embankment; the lamps reflected in the water, making the evening brighter than the gloomy day that had gone before it. Across the river in Battersea Park shadow-figures were running. I understood the value of exercise; for example, I always kept my twice-weekly appointment at the yoga studio, but generally I was a walker, not a runner. You missed so much when you were running. After all, we were made to run away from things or towards things but hardly just for the sake of it.
    I found Angel-face sitting on the floor in her room, her back resting against her old bed, which was single and virginal white. I sat down next to her.
    Angel-face did not look up.
    â€˜I’m thinking of breaking it off.’
    â€˜Your mother told me.’
    Angel-face turned her huge, velvety-brown eyes on me, eyes that were confused and filled with anxiety.
    â€˜It’s your fault.’
    â€˜I know. Your mother told me that too.’
    â€˜Today at lunch I asked you a question and at first you had no answer. Then when you did it was horrible.’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’ I put my hand on her arm giving it a little rub. ‘But, Angel-face, you have to make your own decisions, trust your own feelings. It really isn’t fair to put all this on me. I’m hardly the first person to say these things.’
    â€˜No, you’re not, but you are the first High Priestess of Romance to do so. And you know how I’ve always looked up to you. You can’t just allow yourself to be looked up to and then deny any responsibility. So when you tell me that, in your view, there’s no hope for me and Zac then I take it seriously.’
    â€˜Now you’re exaggerating, Angel-face. I never said there was no hope. I expect I did say –’
    â€˜That the odds by and large were not in our favour.’
    â€˜Even if I did, you can’t live your life like that, saying you won’t do anything because it’s a risk. And disappointment is relative to expectation. Some marriages obviously break up for good reasons: abuse, criminality … but many, in my view, end because of too high expectations.’
    â€˜And whose fault is it that we do have these expectations?’ Angel-face asked.
    I sighed; I could see the way we were heading.
    â€˜Mine, I expect. But, Angel-face, don’t you see that I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, because first you tell me I’ve ruined things for you by what I said at lunch and by not being all starry-eyed and romantic and then you tell me I’ve ruined things because I
am
starry-eyed and romantic.’
    â€˜That’s right,’ Angel-face said trying to look assertive but I could see that she was close to tears; her eyes were open wide and her lower lip was trembling.
    I put my arm round her shoulders and the feel of them, so slight and a little bony, made me close to tears myself. I wanted to find something to tell her that would make her happy again.
    Coco suggested saying that just because something was bound to end in disaster there was no reason not to give it a go.
I mean look at life
, he said.
Give me one example of a happy outcome – I am assuming here that most people don’t see death as a happy ending – but hey, by and large people still give it a shot
.
    â€˜Romance isn’t the be-all and end-all of a marriage,’ I tried.
    â€˜I never said it was. I said that I would settle for ending up somewhere in the vicinity of my dreams and hopes. I said I would settle for not being sour or sad or disappointed or angry or divorced.’
    â€˜Tell her you’re not well.’ Bridget’s voice reached us from the other side of the door. ‘Tell her she’s just having cold feet.’
    â€˜Come in, Mother,’ Angel-face said in her new, tired voice.
    â€˜You’re just having cold feet, Angel-face,’ I said. ‘And don’t listen to me, I’m not myself.’ I wondered if I should