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Obviously this isn’t the sort of thing one should say when one is married. And I’ll admit now that it was a stupid and unkind thing to say. I also seem to remember saying that when you get married in a Registrar’s Office as we did you don’t actually have to make any vows. I’d like to apologize here and now if I made you unhappy saying those things.
    So can we meet? Emotions surely won’t run so high as they did when we talked last time. I am no longer on the crest of a wave and I expect – I’m afraid, oddly enough – you no longer feel about me the way you once did. There are many kinds of love and I would like to think we can still be fond of one another, that we can pick up the pieces and each of us start again.
    I’d rather you didn’t phone me. I’ll tell you what I’d like us to do. Not for you to come here or me to go to you but for us to meet in Hartlands Gardens, have teathere perhaps and maybe go for a walk. You took me there in April once and I remember you said it was a good time when the narcissi are out.
    So if you agree, what about next Saturday, i.e. April 2nd? Peter will be out that afternoon. I will be at Hartlands Gardens in the tea place, the cafeteria, at three. Will that be all right?
    I don’t know how to sign this really.
    Yours affectionately,
    Jennifer
    He read it several times, his heart behaving oddly at first, beating hard and irregularly, it seemed, then as he took deep breaths, he gradually accustomed himself to what was in front of him, a letter from Jennifer, a letter from his wife. She had been going to invite him in, she wanted to see him. If he hadn’t been such a fool and rushed away he would have talked to her, sat with her . . . Of course Peter Moran would have been there too. His eye once more followed the lines of typing down the page.
    She wanted to see him alone. She made a point of saying she wanted to see him when Peter Moran was out. Did that mean she wanted to meet him without Peter knowing? It must do.
    John didn’t keep much liquor in the house. He wasn’t much of a drinker and Jennifer hadn’t been much of a drinker, though both of them would have a beer in a pub or a sherry before dinner in a restaurant. But he always kept a bottle of brandy and for that old cliché reason, medicinal purposes. He kept the brandy in the cabinet just as he kept aspirins in the medicine chest. The bottle was three-quarters full. John poured a single measure into an ordinary water glass and drank it down. It made him choke a bit as well as steadying him.
    His tea had got cold. He poured it down the sink. It was quite plain that, wasn’t it, about picking up the pieces and starting again? Surely she was saying that after what had happened they could never feel quite the same about each other, the starry-eyedness would be gone, but there weremany kinds of love, the quiet mature sort which might be as good as passion – which might be better in the long run.
    I dare not think of it like that, he thought, I dare not build on it. She says she’s sure I’ve ceased to care for her, she’s reminding me how she always threatened to return to Peter Moran if he turned up. And that nonsense about not making vows. I didn’t need to make vows. I won’t think about it. I’ll go to Hartlands Gardens, of course I will, but I won’t think about it between now and then. The unaccustomed brandy affected him, making his hands unsteady. He spilt the tomato sauce from the ravioli can on to the counter and he burned the toast. He wasn’t hungry anyway.
    The trouble was he couldn’t distract his mind from her letter. Why had she said not to phone her? Because she didn’t want Peter to answer the phone or even to overhear what was said? It could only mean one thing: that she wanted to come back to him but was hedging her bets. She wanted to make sure she could come back to him before separating