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live alone? Here in Egypt?’
    ‘No. But it’s happening, more and more.’
    Once upon a time I lived with a family. A husband and children. That was in England. In a house out of a Victorian novel, with stairs and fireplaces and floral cornices round the ceilings, and the sound of passing trains muffled by the lush trees at the bottom of the long garden. I learned about the seasons. I learned that the small clusters of fleshy green leaves would open into blue and white crocus, that the snowdrops appeared overnight, that daffodils should be cut but tulips shouldn’t, that — with luck and care — the rose bushes would blossom twice, and that at winter’s end, you could see on the bare, gnarled branches the tiny, tight buds whose pale, centred speck of green told of the leafy abundance that was yet to come.
    Today, out of the window, I saw the pink carpet under the copper beech. The tree had shed all its flowers and I had not even seen it blossom. But the pink cherry was gloriously in bloom and I went out and walked around the garden and found the foxgloves in their secret places and the forget-me-nots with their golden hearts intact and then, as I looked up at the copper beech, I found, nestled in a dark corner under the spreading branches, one last cluster of blossom like a small pink chandelier and I was overcome with gratitude as though it had stayed there to say to me, Look! It is not too late.
    Anna mends. The face that looks up at me as I turn from the kettle in the kitchen is no longer quite so haunted, quite so pale. The step I hear in my corridor is quicker and lighter, the rustle of the silk dress more crisp.
    I walked to the Museum and I went to see the paintings. I cannot pretend to a wholly untroubled mind — nor would it be proper
now to have one — but I was able, once more, to take pleasure in the wondrous colours, the tranquillity, the contentment with which they are infused. And I wondered, as I had wondered before, is that a world which truly exists?

5
    Something there is moves me to love, and I
Do know I love, but know not how, nor why.
    Alexander Brome, c. 1645
    New York City, March 1997
How can it strike so suddenly? Without warning, without preparation? Should it not grow on you, taking its time, so that when the moment comes when you think ‘I love’, you know — or at least you imagine you know — what it is you love? How can it be that a set of the shoulders, the rhythm of a stride, the shadow of a strand of hair falling on a forehead can cause the tides of the heart to ebb and to flow?
    Which had come first, the gentle lurch as her heart missed a beat or the sight of him in the doorway? Isabel had looked down at the table: her knife and spoon lay at attention, solid and still. Drooping elegantly over the edge of the crested white plate, the corner of her folded pink napkin barely touched the shining, silver-plated steel. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she looked up my brother was halfway across the restaurant, his hand raised in greeting — then his coat and briefcase were in the third chair and the menu was in his hands.
    ‘Have you ordered? Have you been here long? I’m not late, am I? What
is
the time?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I am, I guess. A few minutes. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away. What will you have? Are you hungry? I hope you are. I am.’
    His hands holding the menu. One hand reaching across the table to pat hers, briefly.
     *   *   *
    ‘You know —’ he had leaned back in his seat, wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin — ‘I feel as if I know you from somewhere — before I mean.’
    Watching him, her head to one side, she had smiled.
    ‘No, seriously.’ He waved his hand, a brief gesture of dismissal, as though to say, This is not a line, I am not flirting with you. ‘There’s something, I don’t know what it is —’
    ‘A previous life?’
    He spread his hands, smiled, but the puzzled