'You must have been engaged, when I saw you in the summer ...' She couldn't help it.

He shook his head. 'No. We weren't. It wasn't exactly planned. Not at that point.'

'Where is she now?'

'Afghanistan.'

'Oh God.' She hadn't expected him to say that. Stupid, really.

'She left just after New Year.'

'How long will she be there?'

'Six months, most likely. It could be a bit longer.'

'How scary.'

Rob shrugged. 'It can be. But it's the job. It's what we all train for. It sounds like a cliche, but it's true you'd be frustrated if you didn't get to go. She wanted to go.'

'And you?'

He shook his head. 'That I don't miss. You don't feel that same way the second time, or the third. Not when you know what's coming. You think the training's prepared you, but nothing can, not really not for some of it. I feel like I've done my share.'

'It must be weird, being the one left behind after all those years of being the one doing it. Can you speak to her and stuff?'

He gave her a strange look. 'Yes. It isn't like it used to be.' In our day, he meant. 'Mobile phones, and Skype cameras and the internet ... lots of ways to stay in touch.'

'So, is she okay?'

'She's fine. Least she was yesterday,' he joked.

Susannah cringed.

'Sorry. I didn't mean it to sound that way. She's okay. She's in a place that's relatively safe right now. She's going to be fine.'

'Okay. Good. But you must miss her.'

He nodded, but didn't speak. She fingered the beer mat beneath her glass, twisting it to the left and the right, and watching the liquid swirl gently up the sides of the tumbler.

'What about you, Susannah? You're not married any more, Mum says.'

'To Sean? God, no. We've been divorced ... oh, a really long time now.'

'I'm sorry.'

'It's okay. He left me.' She didn't really know why she said that.

'Idiot.'

That was why.

'He's married to someone else now. Miriam. And they have kids. He lives in America.'

Rob nodded slowly.

'I saw the two of you, you know.'

'What?'

'I saw you and him. In ... 1993, 1994, I think. I was in London.'

'What do you mean?'

Rob took a deep breath. 'I came to look for you. I was on leave. I'd been wanting to, for ages. To come and see you. We never ... we didn't end it well.'

'That was my fault.'

'Mine, too.' His eyes bored into hers. 'And I wanted to see you. I tracked down your address. Went to your flat. I was going to wait for you. Stupid plan. I don't know what I was expecting. I sound like some crazy stalker, I know.'

'I never knew.'

'Of course not. I'd almost thought better of it before you showed up. Then you came home, but you weren't alone. You were with him. The two of you pitched up, carrying a bunch of Sainsbury's bags, chatting away. You looked really happy really together.'

'Why didn't you come and say hello?'

Rob raised his eyebrow sardonically at her. 'And the point of that would have been?'

God. She didn't know where to begin. She didn't know how to answer. Would it have made any difference at all, would it have changed things?

Probably not. It would just have been an embarrassing, stilted encounter. She'd never told Sean much about Rob. She'd always been ashamed of what she'd done, and she hadn't wanted to carry her past into their future she'd made a concerted effort not to do that. He'd done the only sensible thing, sloping away into the night.

She looked down at her hands.

'Lousy timing, I guess.'

She guessed so. They'd always had it. Never quite had a clear run.

'There's someone else, though, right?'

'Yes.'

He looked at her expectantly, and she shrugged. 'Douglas.'

'But you're not married?'

'No. Tried that. Didn't work out for me.' Doug's line. Why the hell would she say that? It always sounded crappy when he said it always mock jovially and it sounded the same way coming from her.

'And no kids.'

'He has three. Two girls and a boy.'

'So, you're a stepmother? How's that?'

She grimaced. 'Like being a real mother, except everyone resents you more for everything you do ...'

'Wow. You make it sound so great.' His eyes were laughing.

'Don't take any notice of me. I sound bitter and jaded, don't I? How attractive.'

'It's funny to me that you don't have any of your own.' His turn to be up front.

'Because?'

'You always said you wanted some.'

'Did I?'

He looked at her quizzically. 'You don't remember?'

Of course she did. He was her past, sitting here in front of her in her present. Making her remember. She shrugged again and answered obliquely because she knew that would stop him questioning further. 'It hasn't happened, that's all.'

'Shame.' Such a Rob-ism that she had to smile.

'What about you? You said Helena was younger than you. Besides, who cares how old a guy is, right? Charlie Chaplin and all that ... you'll have some, I suppose?'

'I don't know. We're not long married. And she's got years to make up her mind. She's ambitious, too, for her career. She wants to outrank me.'

'How close is she to that?'

Rob smiled. 'Not that close yet. I came out a squadron leader. She's a pilot officer. She's got a couple to go ... Besides, you tend not to think about kids while your wife is on active duty. They'd take a bit of a dim view of that sort of thing at the moment.'

She nodded. 'One day, though? You'd be a great dad.'

'Would I? Isn't that one of those things people say?'

'I think you would. I used to think you would anyway. Have you changed much?'

'We all change, don't we?'

'We change ... and we stay the same ...'

'See you were always the philosophical one. No change there!'

Outside, later, it was colder than ever. They stood facing each other. Susannah's long woollen scarf lay loosely around her neck. Still looking at her, Rob took both ends and wrapped them once more around, moving close enough to her that she could feel his warm breath on her face. He didn't let go straight away, his hands at her throat. It was proprietary, and it was kind, and it was like an electric shock. She stepped back, involuntarily, and pulled on her gloves efficiently, shivering after the pub's warm interior.

'So, can we do this again, Susie? I've really enjoyed seeing you.'

'I don't know,' she hesitated.

'What don't you know?'

'Whether we should.'

'Are we doing anything wrong?' He put his hands out.

Not yet. But she wasn't sure how long it might stay that way. The magnetic thing that had always been there from the first day in the English class, and the Bonfire Night on the common ... it was still there.

It was way, way too complicated.

'Go on, Susie. Please. I've ... I've missed you.'

In the immortal words of Jerry Maguire, he had her at 'Susie'. And she'd missed him, too. Seeing him again, talking to him it was always going to have done one of two things to her. She'd half hoped (or had she, really?) that it would have laid the ghost of him to rest at long last. That he would have seemed nice, sweet, kind. But that the encounter would have put him back in his rightful place in her mind a piece of her past.

It had done the second thing. What was it the Japanese admiral had said just after the Pearl Harbor attacks? Something about awakening a sleeping giant?

Douglas was sitting at the kitchen table when she got home, and she heard another male voice from the side of the table she couldn't see from the hall. She took her coat off and hung it in the cupboard, slowly, taking a minute to calm herself down. She looked at her face in the hall mirror, but she didn't look any different, except that, maybe, her eyes were brighter. But she felt utterly transformed. Smoothing down her skirt and tucking her hair behind her ears, she walked towards the kitchen. It was Alastair, sitting nursing a bottle of beer, his suit jacket on the back of the chair and his tie loosened.

'Hi, Sis.'

Shit. She'd forgotten. He was in town for a few meetings, and he'd called at the weekend to ask if he could stay the night. She'd agreed, of course it was always nice to see him. And then she'd forgotten, when Rob called.

'God. I'm so sorry. I forgot you were coming.' She went cross-eyed at him. 'One of those days at work, I'm afraid.' She almost felt her cheeks redden. The first lie she'd told because of Rob. Even now she wondered whether there'd be more.

'No worries. Doug was home by the time I got here. I wasn't left out on the doorstep with my overnight bag.'

Susannah smiled gratefully at Doug. 'Good. Good.'

'Did you get supper?' Douglas looked at her empty-handedness, with something like the beginnings of exasperation in his voice and on his face.

She'd said she would, this morning. She hadn't done that either. She shrugged. 'Indian?'

'Indian works for me.' If Alastair was aware of the tension, he was covering very well. 'Kathryn doesn't like curry, as you know, so it'd be a treat ...' He was smiling broadly at her, but there was curiosity in his face, too.

She knew this wasn't like her.

'We'll need to pick it up, though.' Doug interrupted her thoughts. 'Not have it delivered. We're out of milk and bread, too.'

She nodded. 'Great. Fine. I'll go.'

'Can't I go? You just got in.'

'No. Of course not. It's fine. I'll go. I took a cab home, so I haven't walked far or anything ...'

'I'll come with you, then.'

'That'd be nice.'

Douglas didn't offer just asked for a chicken tikka and a garlic naan bread and went upstairs to change.