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arms folded, her face set and blank, her whole body trembling faintly. A favourite phrase of Tim's ran through my mind: The things people do to each other. God, it was true. I felt guilt and remorse at one remove. They should have enveloped me. But for the moment they couldn't touch me. I recognized them only as theoretical emotions. The real thing was what I felt for Marian. It made everything else seem not just worthwhile but irrelevant. Without another word I stepped out through the door and pulled it shut behind me.
    Tim lived alone in a small terraced house in Parsons Green, well set in his contented ways, which revolved in neatly described circles round his cat, his classical music collection and his processing lab half a mile up the road. He viewed his friends' emotional crises with the pained bafflement of someone who'd never experienced anything even remotely similar, although I'd often wondered if he harboured a secret passion for Faith. They were alike in many ways. And that evening at his local, the White Horse, he told me, as he had on numerous occasions in the past, that I was mad to treat her so badly.
    "You're probably right, Tim. But falling in love isn't much different from going mad. Just rather more fun."
    "I wouldn't know, would I?" he responded, slipping out a self-deprecating smile. "I'll have to take your word for it. You're certainly not the same man I had a drink with a fortnight ago."
    "How do you mean?"
    "You look about five years younger and you can't stop grinning, which doesn't make any sense considering you're in the process of turning your life upside down. So I suppose it has to be love."
    "I've never met anyone like her before."
    "Naturally not."
    "She's just.. . utterly extraordinary."
    "Of course."
    "And we're doing the right thing. I know we are."
    "Good."
    "I'm only sorry other people have to get hurt along the way. I wish it could be avoided. But it can't. You do see that, don't you?"
    "Are you asking me for my approval, Ian? I'm not sure I can give you that."
    "Let's say I'm not, then."
    "After all, this may be simpler than five years ago, but in the long run it could be a great deal more significant."
    "It's bound to be."
    "What about Amy, for instance?"
    "I'll go up and see her tomorrow, before Faith has the chance to make it sound worse than it is."
    "She wouldn't do that." Tim sounded disappointed at needing to contradict me. "Besides, how could she? Let's be honest. There aren't a lot of extenuating circumstances, are there?"
    I stared hard at him, then we both smiled. "No, Tim. There aren't. Not one, since you mention it. Except that I can't seem to stop myself."
    "I reckoned not. It's why I haven't bothered trying to talk you out of it."
    "Perceptive, as usual."
    "Just a gift for observation. Too generalized to make me as good a photographer as you are. You've always had an obsessive streak, Ian. I wouldn't have thought it made you very good at mixing business with pleasure, though, like you must have been doing in Vienna." "I managed."
    "So you did bring back some pictures?" "Yes."
    "Which you'll want me to print?" "Of course." "Tomorrow?"
    "I was hoping so. Then I could deliver them on Friday." "Before taking off with the woman of your dreams." I shrugged apologetically. "Something like that." "This is going to cost you a few friendships, you know. A lot of people are going to take Faith's side. You do realize that, don't you?"
    "Yes. But the friendships that really matter will endure." Tim sighed and drank some of his beer, then gave me a purse-lipped frown that amounted to a limited kind of blessing. "I suppose they will. When all's said and done."
    I took the train to Bury St. Edmunds next morning, then a taxi out to Amy's school. I'd phoned ahead and arranged to see her during a free period before lunch. This was the worst part of the whole enterprise. I knew she was going to be upset and I knew Faith would end up doing most of the consoling. But still I wanted to be the