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make. One day, she thought, maybe she and James could have a baby of their own. She was only thirty-eight. She still had time. Just.
    At five to six she heard the car pull up outside. The door to her cottage was right on the road and opened straight into the tiny living room. The pavement was almost non-existent so it was just about possible to step straight from car to house without touching anything in between. Katie flung open the door dramatically and threw her arms round James, swamping him as he camein. ‘Good journey?’ she asked finally, disengaging herself.
    James kissed the top of her head. ‘Fine,’ he said, throwing down his bag on the sofa. Stanley jumped up to greet him.
    ‘And Finn? How was he yesterday?’
    ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I took him to the zoo.’ He sniffed the air noisily, feeling the need to change the subject, perhaps because the exaggeration was making him uncomfortable. ‘Smells good. What is it?’
    ‘Guess,’ Katie said playfully, a habit she had. She would ask him to guess the most ridiculous things, things he could have no way of knowing. ‘Guess who I saw today,’ she'd say, or ‘Guess what Mum said.’ ‘Guess what I read in the paper.’
    ‘Stuffed baby octopus and Jerusalem artichokes,’ James said.
    ‘No, silly, it's coq au vin. Do you remember? We had it the second time we went out. Both of us ordered the exact same thing on the menu, coq au vin, mashed potatoes and cheesecake to follow. Straight from the 1980s.’
    ‘Well, I'm starving,’ James said, picking her up and twirling her round. Stanley let out a frenzied bark.
    ‘Oh, I forgot. Sally left a message for you,’ Katie said, as they shared a glass of Pinot Noir on the small patio. ‘Can you go straight to Carson's farm in the morning? Simon'll meet you there.’
    ‘Did she say why?’
    ‘Erm… immunization, inoculation, incubation, something like that. Cows, I think. She said it wasn't anything worrying.’ She noticed that James was looking at her. ‘Oh, God, I should start writing things down, shouldn't I?’
    ‘It's OK.’ He smiled, taking her hand. ‘You wouldn't be you if you did.’
    James rarely spoke to Sally, the country practice's receptionist, unless he had to. She had an over-familiar manner that he found irritating and which made him feel uncomfortable, as if she was trying to catch him out in a lie. ‘Good weekend with Finn?’ she said now, once he had said hello.
    James ignored the question. ‘Could you just tell me what my first appointment is in the morning?’ he said. ‘Katie got a bit confused.’
    He could hear the sigh in Sally's voice. ‘Carson's, nine o'clock. Routine inoculation for the whole dairy herd. Simon will meet you there. I told Katie all this.’
    ‘And now you've told me,’ James said sarcastically. ‘Thank you so much, Sally.’
    ‘God, that girl's awful,’ he said, as he put the phone down. He had a vague memory that he had once tried to snog Sally at a Christmas party a couple of years ago, before he had met Katie. He had a blurry vision in his head of her pushing him away and telling him he was a ridiculous old lech. It wasn't something he liked to dwell on.
    ‘It's my fault,’ Katie said. ‘If I'd written down what she said you wouldn't have had to call her in the first place.’
    James scooped Katie on to his lap. ‘You're too nice,’ he said. ‘You see the good in everyone.’ He nuzzled her neck and simultaneously slipped a hand on to her right breast. Foreplay disguised as positive affirmation: always a good move.
    ‘If you look for the good in people you'll always be rewarded,’ she said, and James wished she wouldn't always kill the moment with her cod New Age philosophy.

7
    Sunday nights for Stephanie were very different. After the rush of getting together Finn's things for school next day, a hopeless ritual which played out in pretty much the same way every week —
    ‘Where are your trainers?’
    ‘Don't know.’
    ‘Where did you