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Welsh Assembly offices, where he worked,
and to find somewhere to eat in the Bay. She was a little nervous about the encounter; she often spoke to him on the phone, or chatted briefly when he picked up Rose for the weekend, but
they’d never actually gone out for a meal together since the split. She feared that perhaps this was an attempt on his part to woo her back; it was he who’d offered to take her out.
He’d suggested a stylish brasserie in the vicinity; she’d countered by saying that she wouldn’t have much time, and that perhaps they should grab a sandwich somewhere. He’d
sounded disappointed, and in the end they’d agreed to take a stroll around the Bay and find somewhere on the day. On a Tuesday lunchtime, the restaurants and cafes on the waterside would
hardly be packed to the gunwales.
    Before she left her consulting rooms, she went to the loo, washed her hands, and combed her hair, checking her face in the mirror as she did so. She looked tired, she thought; there were bluish
shadows under her eyes. To draw attention away from them, she took out a brightly coloured lipstick and applied it, rubbing the excess onto her cheeks. Immediately, she looked better; the slash of
pinkish red suited her pale complexion and dark hair; it made her look sexy, but in a cheerful, rather than sultry, way. She stepped back from the mirror a little and adjusted her coat; it was a
moss-green Harris tweed, with a nipped-in waist, a swing to the skirt, and a dark brown faux-fur collar. She always felt good in it; it was comfortable and snug, but with a touch of glamour,
accentuating the curve of her waist. She wriggled her shoulders and hips, feeling the soft satin lining against them. Before Bob left, the coat had been getting a little tight for her. Now, with
all this extra work and worry, she’d been eating less, and it was snug again, fitting just right.
    She went downstairs, pausing to let the receptionist, Branwen, know her plans for the afternoon, then walked quickly to her car, parked a little way up the street. She got in, started the
engine, and swung out into the traffic. The jams had disappeared now, and she had a fairly clear run down through the city centre to the Bay. Once she was there, she found a space at the back of
the Assembly, parked the car, walked round to the front of the building, and went in.
    Bob was waiting for her in the foyer, sitting reading the paper. That was a first. In the past, he’d always been in his office when she arrived, and she’d had to ask the receptionist
to contact him, sometimes repeatedly, until he came down to meet her. Now the boot was on the other foot.
    For a moment, before he noticed her, she watched him – dispassionately almost, as if she were meeting him on a first date. It was odd, she thought, how someone so familiar to her could,
all of a sudden, seem like a stranger. Now in his fifties, he was still a good-looking man, she could see that; the type women found attractive. He had a full head of hair, greying now, but still
wild and curly, as it had been when she’d first met him. His reading glasses, perched on his nose, seemed somehow to be foreign to him, as if he’d borrowed them for a moment, rather
than depending on them daily to cope with his failing sight as he grew older. His shoulders were broad, and even though he was sitting down, you could see that he was a big, thickset man. In days
gone by, whenever she’d seen him after a short parting, even after years of marriage, her heart had given a little jump of excitement. Today there was nothing; nothing but a kind of
affectionate sadness for the memory of that feeling. She wondered if he felt the same.
    ‘Jess.’ He jumped up when he saw her, walked over to her, and enveloped her in a hug.
    ‘Sorry I’m late.’ She extricated herself as tactfully as she could.
    ‘You’re not. It’s good to see you.’
    The formal politeness of their greetings these days hurt her a little, but