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about how difficult it was to start things off with the snows getting later and later like this. She looked at the back of him while he spoke. How very upright he was, even at his age. He’d always been one of the standing-up-straight sort. Proper. It was certainly nice to see him again. But she didn’t know what he thought he was doing here. She carried the vase of tulips into the front room and set them on the coffee table, where they would best hold the light. He followed her through, slightly unexpectedly, and, standing a little too close, asked whether she’d ever considered taking in paying guests. She told him she didn’t really know about that.
    ‘You have the space though.’
    ‘Well, perhaps.’
    ‘I just rather wondered whether you couldn’t use the extra hands about the place. You know. I realise money’s not quite the thing at the moment, but there could be other forms of payment. Help, you know. Connections.’
    ‘I’m not sure, really.’
    ‘I do have a strong back, even now. There’s lots I could do.’
    ‘I have people who come and help, thank you. I manage.’
    ‘It’s just that, you know how it is. Things are rather difficult. In town. I thought we might be able to help each other out. At a difficult moment. For old times’ sake. A mutually beneficial arrangement, you know.’
    ‘I don’t think it’s very practical, actually.’
    ‘It’s completely practical!’
    ‘Excuse me.’
    ‘Oh, now.’
    ‘I think the bus may be leaving soon.’
    ‘Look, sorry.’
    ‘I wouldn’t want you to miss it.’
    ‘Will you think about it though? Will you be in touch?’
    ‘I think you’d better get on. If you’re to catch that bus.’
    ‘Mary, will you think about it?’
    ‘Thank you very much for the flowers. They really are lovely. I do appreciate the trouble you must have gone to in finding them.’
    ‘Mary, please.’
    She moved into the hallway and held out his coat, waiting for him to put his shoes back on. She held it out between them, as though to forestall him. She couldn’t bear a scene. He opened the door and took his coat and ducked his head beneath the falling snow. He didn’t look at her as he left. She closed the door to keep the heat in. She watched him through the spyhole. The lens made him appear warped, smaller than he really was.

Which Reminded Her, Later
    Grantham
    And then there was the American woman he’d offered the spare room to that time, without question or thought or apparent consideration of the fact that Catherine might at least like to have been told. The first she’d known about it had been when she’d got home from work and found the woman standing there in the hallway, looking not at all surprised or uncomfortable, eating natural yoghurt straight from the pot and waiting for whatever it was that Catherine was going to say. Which had of course been nothing more than a faintly quizzical hello? Holding the front door open behind her, the rain blowing in from the garden and something like smugness or amusement lingering on the American woman’s face for just a moment before she finally acknowledged Catherine with a quietly unconcerned hello of her own. And carried on eating the yoghurt. And made no attempt to explain herself.
    A strange-looking woman, she remembered. Very slim, and very pale, with rubbed-red eyes and mismatched layers of clothing; a long cotton dress, a man’s checked shirt, a college scarf, a beige raincoat. Sandals. No make-up. She looked at first as though she might be in her sixties, but Michael said later that he’d thought she was closer to forty-five. Which was their own age at the time, in fact.
    ‘Can I help you?’ Catherine had asked, only slightly more pointedly – strange, this reluctance to be more direct, to say who the hell are you and do you mind getting out of my house – and the woman had shaken her head, and smiled graciously, and said, ‘Oh, no, thank you, your husband’s been very kind already.’ Holding up