Whiteside's hand was reaching to the biscuit plate, but on seeing Serrailler's glare, he pulled it reluctantly back and followed him out of the cottage.

Ten.

They had arranged this afternoon together over a month ago. Lizzie finished school at three on a Thursday, Helen had booked the day off.

She spent the morning sorting out her clothes. She ended with three piles: what she never wore, what she occasionally wore and what she often wore. Eventually, there were three bags for the charity shop, one for the clothes recycling bin, one for the drycleaner's. The rest, brushed and rehung, went back into the wardrobe where a large new space waited promisingly.

She met Elizabeth at the school gates, for the first time in goodness knew how many years, and they drove into Bevham. Three hours and many carrier bags later, they were back in Lafferton and having coffee and toasted teacakes at the new brasserie in the Lanes.

For the entire time, Helen had managed to keep the conversation on clothes and shoes with brief mentions of university entrance and the girl who was doggedly pursuing Tom.

The brasserie was quiet. It had been an immediate hit with local shoppers, office workers, young people, women meeting up for lunch, busy from the first coffee servings at ten thirty through to a lot of afternoon teas. It would be busy again after seven. Now, only a few people were drinking at the bar. They had got a table on the dais in the window which had a view down the Lanes towards the cathedral, and Helen was feeling pleased-pleased to be with her daughter, pleased with her purchases, pleased.

"Right. Spill the beans," Lizzie said, spooning up the froth from her cappuccino.

"What beans?"

"Well, something's happened. Come on."

No point in stalling. Lizzie knew her too well. Lizzie had been the first one to say, "You liked him, didn't you? It worked out, didn't it?" a couple of minutes after Helen had stepped in through the door after her first evening out with Phil. "Good," she had kept saying. "Good," as she had heard more.

She had also come home the next day and announced that a friend whose brother was at the school where Phil taught pronounced him "Decent" and "Not dumb."

"Don't get excited. This is so daft I'm not sure he was serious."

"What is?"

"He's asked me to go with him to the Jug Fair!"

"Oh. My. God. You are joking!"

"Apparently not. Since he rang again ten minutes later to say he hadn't been. Joking that is."

"Actually ... I think it's rather sweet. In fact, definitely it is. You can eat candyfloss together and hold hands on the ghost train and he can win you one of those pink rabbits with goofy teeth on the duck shooting."

"Thanks a bunch."

"You are going, aren't you?"

Helen had asked herself the same question several times, without coming up with a final answer. It was not the Jug Fair. That would be fine. A fair was a fair, whoever you went with, and if she couldn't enjoy herself at one she was a lost cause. But she sensed that if she went with Phil, she would be taking a definite step over a line between a single friendly outing and ...

And whatever she had signed up on the Internet for.

"Mum?"

"Well, of course I'm going," she said, wiping butter from her mouth. "And I'm having another espresso too.'

Eleven.

He was excited. He went to bed with the sick feeling of excitement he had had as a small boy on Christmas Eve. He had woken with the same thump in his gut as he remembered what day it was.

The perfect weather went on and on. The huge moons. The misty dawns. Hot days. Chill set in after six.

They were out at the grounds on the Clandine estate, fifteen miles to the west of Lafferton. Always were for the last shoot of the season. The woodland setting, the hill behind, the drop to the lake, everything was perfect. The hospitality was second to none. The sponsors were generous. But it was more than that. Everything came together at the last shoot. For him, it was more than a day out, a good lunch. He set out to win. He always set out to win. He had set out to win from the first time he shot at clays.

He was there early. They were still setting up. It was an English sporting layout of eight ten-bird stands and a hundred-bird team flush off the newly installed high tower. The best you could hope for. The birds would simulate high pheasant, very high pheasant, crossing pigeon, flushing partridge and various others incoming and going. There was no challenge like it.

People working for the sponsors were stretching a banner between two posts. The catering marquee was up. Land Rovers full of girls and cutlery baskets drove across the field.

He went back to the car. Stood leaning on the bonnet, looking, looking, checking the atmosphere, the sight line, the backdrop, looking, looking. Getting his eye in.

A couple of members drew up beside him. He nodded. Went back to looking, looking. In a minute, he would walk from the tower, a hundred yards, out and back. Looking. He swung his arms. Turned his head from side to side. Keep loose. Keep flexible. Keep easy.

He used a 32-inch over-under. The same he had used for the past three years. The years he had won.

He began to walk away from the car. Pace evenly towards the tower, looking, looking. Swinging his arms.

But he was careful to go into the marquee afterwards, get a breakfast bap, hot bacon and mushrooms, from the smiling blonde girls, take it to a group table, talk, laugh, socialise. He didn't want to be labelled a loner. Loners weren't liked. Not trusted.

Not loners with guns.

He bit into the soft fresh bread and the salt bacon taste made the juices run inside his mouth.

"Champion again this year, then?" Roger Barratt said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He swallowed. Shook his head. "Someone else's turn. I reckon I've had mine."

They all laughed. He hadn't taken anyone in.

They were looping back the sides of the marquee already. It was going to be hot. Clear. Blue sky. Shooting to the north-east. Perfect.

He walked out, easy, relaxed, calm. Confident.

Twelve.

"Raffles!"

But the dog was at the door before him, quivering. Phil Russell laughed as he unhooked the lead and put his hand on the door handle. Paused. The retriever looked at him, frozen, knowing but hardly daring to admit that, yes, he was home, yes, they were going on a walk. Yes!

Phil opened the door.

During term, Phil took the dog with him on a two-mile run every morning. A neighbour came and walked him again after lunch. But it was this occasional late-afternoon outing man and dog enjoyed most of all, into the car and off into the country beyond Lafferton. It kept them both sane.

Now, he turned onto the main road and east towards Durnwell. The river ran this way. The bank was fringed with pollarded willows.

He had come here a couple of times a week for years, with Raffles and with his previous dog. Once he had grown used to life without Sheila, Phil had enjoyed his own company. In any case, he saw enough people during the working day. Nothing was different.

Everything was different.

He stood for a while on top of a slope overlooking the river and threw the ball. He was training Raffles to the gun. The dog raced and dived, retrieved and returned, and it was only when he began to slow down on the way back with the ball in his mouth, panting with pleasure and tiredness, that Phil sat down on the grass. Raffles lay companionably beside him, the wet ball tucked beneath his chin. It had been another hot day. The midges seethed over the water.

Everything was different.

He did not know if he believed in a coup de foudre. It had taken him months to be sure of his feelings for Sheila, though once he was sure marriage had been the next and easy step. It was only in the last year that he had entertained the idea of looking for someone again and he had usually pushed it straight out of mind.

It had been the thought of winter that had troubled him, winter alone, now that Hugh was in Africa and Tom so wrapped up in his acting. Phil had resources. There was much that he could enjoy. Winter was the time for pheasant-shooting. But "alone" had begun to read "lonely." The thought would not leave him.

He had walked into the pub to meet Helen Creedy hoping to have a friendly drink and to find a companion for the theatre from time to time. Helen Creedy. He had seen her and known, in a way he had never known anything since Sheila, that she would be important. Would change his life. Would ...

Stop. He watched as a heron flapped up from the water and flew away, legs dangling, ungainly in the air as it was graceful at rest.

Stop.

Helen Creedy. What? He tried words in his head, watching the letters move about and come together, words like Enjoy. Friend. Pretty. Fun. Intelligent. Good. Talk.

Like Gentle. Sympathetic.

Like Company. Good listener.

Like Attracted.

Love.

Stop.

What was love? He had loved Sheila. Of course he had, though love had changed every year, as love did. Early love. Surprised love. Warm love. Protective. Married. Parent. Everyday. Companionable. Happy. Frightened. Anguished. Desolate. Bereaved love. Grief.

He loved Hugh and Tom. That was different.

What was this now? Attraction. Liking. Enjoyment. Pleasure.

Love?

The shadows were lengthening. The cloud of midges thickened and jazzed closer to the surface of the water.

Marriage.

Company. Like friendly. Relief.

Marriage. Partnership.

Love.

He stood up and offered to throw the ball again but Raffles wandered away.

Love.

He had rung Helen to ask her to the Jug Fair, an impulse, for fun. She had laughed. Agreed. For fun.

The Cocktail Party was at the Bevham Rep next week.

"I haven't seen a T.S. Eliot play for years."

"They don't do them much."

"Like Christopher Fry, out of fashion. Pity."

"And John Whiting."

"I loved John Whiting! No one has ever heard of him now."

"The Cocktail Party then?"

"Yes please."

Love?

Something was different. Something. He thought about Helen as he drove home, with Raffles asleep on the back seat.

Love?

He was bewildered. Something which had begun in a half-hearted way, something he had dared himself to do, had turned him inside out and he had no experience, no knowledge, no emotional resources to draw on for help. He felt churned up, with anxiety, confusion, regret even at having started this in the first place.

He had not wanted complication, he had wanted someone to enjoy the theatre with now and again.

The theatre and all the fun of the fair.