The flat looked much more lived in when they'd finished putting the new things in place.

Before she left, Amelia hugged her friend tight. 'You going to be okay? Want me to stay?'

Susannah laughed. 'Permanently?'

'Just for tonight. Though permanently sounds tempting. Be just like the good old days, wouldn't it?'

'Except for I don't know the one bed, the kids you've got at home ... the mess I've made of my life ...'

'Your life isn't a mess, Susannah. Your life is clean and clear and accessorized, if I may say so, beautifully. You've made the big, hard decisions, and, at the risk of sounding all Oprah, I'm so proud of you for doing that. And you've got hair. As of right now, your life makes a lot more sense to me than it has done in years.'

Susannah felt a stab of guilt. Amelia might not say that if she really knew. But she wasn't asking. Things were delicate between them, still, and Susannah knew it was easier this way.

Rob would be here in an hour or so. She kissed Amelia, and ushered her out, promising to pick her up on Monday. Rob was coming. She ached to see him. She knew he'd gone home he'd texted her briefly to say his dad wasn't well, that his mum needed him. She hadn't liked to chase him. It was weird, but she still didn't feel she had rights despite what had happened between them. So, she knew he was at his mum's and she knew the number, but she daren't ring. In the middle of the night, she had woken up in a panic. He was backing out. He was backing away. But in the morning she felt better. She willed herself to believe that this particular dream was inexorably coming true. That she'd waited this long for him and she could wait a bit longer.

He was coming in an hour. He was.

And he did.

He came. But she knew straight away that something was very, very wrong. Rob hadn't shaved, and she hadn't seen him with a few days' growth before. He looked older. For a second or two, he held himself aloof from her embrace, his shoulders straight and stiff. But then he crumpled, and let himself be held. She pulled him into the living room, and on to the sofa. She waited for him to tell her, sensing that it was difficult for him to speak and willing herself to stay calm.

'He loves me, he loves me. It is going to be alright.' She almost chanted the mantra out loud.

'My dad died.'

'Oh God, Rob.' She hadn't even thought it might be that. Relief flooded her. And was followed immediately by sorrow. For Rob, for Lois, for lovely Frank who she had adored. 'I'm so sorry. When?'

'Yesterday. Yesterday afternoon. I've been with Mum.'

Susannah's eyes had filled with sudden tears.

Rob brushed one from her cheek.

'Of course.' She nodded. 'How is she?'

Rob shrugged. 'Lousy. She can't stop crying. It's all she does. It's scary, you know. I can't help her.'

Susannah's tears of pity for Lois came faster now. She struggled to find what to say.

'I'm sure you helped her just by being there.'

Rob laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. 'I wasn't even there.'

'When he died?'

'When she needed me most. I was with you.'

'I don't understand.'

'We were in bed together. After I got back from France. After you left Douglas. She'd been leaving messages. She'd left all these messages. She needed me. Dad's breathing got bad. She had to get him to hospital. She had to let them put a tube down his throat to breathe for him. She wanted me to be there. To help her. But I never got the damn message.'

'Oh my God.'

Rob stood up and walked over to the window.

'Would it have made any difference, if you'd been there?'

He shook his head, but he didn't look at her. 'Not to my dad. If they hadn't tubed him, he'd have died. But it would have made all the difference in the world to Mum. She shouldn't have had to go through that alone.'

Susannah nodded. He was right, she knew.

Now Rob sat down heavily on the chair at the table. 'I can't believe what I did.'

'You didn't do anything, Rob. You couldn't have known.'

'I wasn't thinking about him, Susie. I wasn't thinking about either of them.'

He was thinking about us, she thought. That's all either of us could think about. We've been in a beautiful bubble. She felt it bursting all around them in the room, pricked by their new reality. 'What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.'

Rob shrugged. 'Once the tube was in, it was the beginning of the end. Everything shuts down.'

'Did he know what was going on?'

'I don't think so. I looked at him, you know. Stared at him. But he never opened his eyes. Not after I got there.'

Susannah wanted to ask questions had they taken the decision to switch the machines off, or had Frank died naturally? But she knew it wasn't the time.

'Mum couldn't let go. She sat there and held his hand, and her eyes never looked anywhere at all but at his face. They took the tubes out, the drips and stuff took it all away and switched off the machines, and still she just sat there. In the end, I had to peel her hand off his. She didn't say anything at all. Not to me. She just kept saying, over and over again "mio amore", "mio amore". It was what he used to call her. When she said it, he laughed at her accent. Not unkindly, you know. Just because it made him smile. She said it to him then. So quietly you almost couldn't hear it. I think the nurses thought she was praying over him or something.'

Rob rubbed his bloodshot eyes. 'I can't believe he's gone.'

She went to him, hugged him from behind, and he took her hand, raising it to his mouth to kiss it. It was a gesture that was pure Frank a memory from years ago. She kissed the top of his head very gently.

'I loved him.'

'I know.'

They stayed that way for a long while, without speaking. Susannah knew Rob was crying, and she let him, smoothing his hair, her arm tightly around him.

When she was uncomfortable standing that way any longer, she moved round in front of him and pushed him back towards the sofa, looking at him. He looked back. Then he put one hand on either side of her face and pulled her down on to the sofa with him in an unexpected, deep kiss. He almost fell on to her from the sofa, and they lay kissing on the floor, pulling at each other's clothes. He felt a sudden deep need for her, to be connected to her, and she responded, desperate to be whatever he needed her to be. Right now, it felt like proof that he was still alive. This wasn't like the time before. This time was urgent and fast, his hips pumping into her wide-open thighs, her hands on his back. He was only inside her for a few minutes before he came, looking deep into her eyes, and when he did, he sobbed again into the side of her neck, his face hot and sweaty against her skin.

Later, they lay together on the sofa, under a blanket, talking about what was happening. Rob was calm now. Frank never went to church. He was Catholic, of course baptized, but not confirmed but Lois wasn't. Susannah hadn't realized. The vicar at St Gabriel's had agreed to do the service Frank wouldn't want a funeral mass, Lois said, and she knew no one at the Catholic church. She didn't know many people at St Gabriel's either, but the vicar was kind, Rob said, and obviously understood that Lois wanted this done in the simplest way. He'd be cremated, after the service, at the local crematorium.

Frank was at the undertaker's now, Rob said. They'd taken in his best navy-blue suit, and sorted out the coffin and flowers. There was very little to do Lois had discovered that Frank had spoken to the undertaker already, just after his diagnosis, and paid for what he'd chosen, and that had caused fresh tears. 'He'd thought of everything to make my life easier,' she said, wringing a handkerchief in her hands, 'but he couldn't fix the one thing I cared about, bless him.'

There weren't many people to notify. Rob had called a cousin, and asked him to spread the word among what family remained.

'Will Helena be able to come home?' Susannah asked, terrified of the answer.

'She could. For the death of a parent-in-law you'd get compassionate leave for that, if you asked for it.'

'And so, has she asked for it? Will she?'

'I haven't spoken to her yet. I'm going to ask her not to come.' Rob wondered whether he meant ask her, or tell her. Either way he knew he didn't want her to make the journey.

He wasn't letting himself think about whether that would hurt her.

Rob felt almost panicked by his distress. Everywhere he turned there was mess, and he felt as if it was all his fault. A line he thought he'd remembered from some action or war film kept running through his head ... something about the enemy threatening to inflict a world of hurt and pain ... ?

'I'll come. If you like. I know ... I mean, I know I can't sit with you. I wouldn't want to do that. I just ... if you'll let me, I'd just like to be there, for Frank. For you.'

And he couldn't tell her no.

May St Gabriel's wasn't full for Frank's funeral people only occupied the first four or five pews. Empty churches were maudlin. He and Lois hadn't had all that many friends, Susannah remembered. They hadn't seemed to need much beyond each other. Most of the people were relatives, she thought. While the organist played, six undertakers carried the oak coffin in on their shoulders, performing the awkward, slow three-point turn at the front of the church that always made a coffin wobble worryingly, and then laid it on the wooden stands set up in front of the altar. It was adorned with a simple wreath of yellow roses. Lois had arrived first, and was sitting in a front pew with her back to everyone. Rob threw her a brief, sad smile as he passed, then walked to the front to sit beside her, and she leant into him a little.

Susannah was sitting alone in a pew very near to the back. She'd driven down this morning, telling no one where she was going, and she'd drive back afterwards. She knew she wouldn't be able to talk to Rob today, nor to touch him, but she needed to be near him.

As the organist began playing the first hymn, her mother slid into the pew beside her, dressed in a neat black shirt dress. Susannah should have realized Rosemary would know what was going on at St Gabriel's, but she was surprised to see her. Rosemary kissed her daughter on the cheek, and held her hand as she sang, with vigour, in her tuneful soprano.

After the service, the two of them sat still and quiet while the mourners filed out behind the coffin. Rob didn't look up, nor did Lois seem to see her. After a minute or so, just the two of them remained in the cool church.

Rosemary bent her head in a last, silent prayer, then stacked her hymn book neatly on the shelf, unable to resist a quick dust check with her index finger as she stood up. 'Shall we?' She was gesturing at the back door the same escape route Susannah had taken with Alastair after Alex's wedding, all those months and all those decisions ago.

They sat on the same bench outside. It was warm.

'How did you know I'd be here?'

'I'm not daft. Not as daft as you think I am, at any rate. I put it all together. Your dad told me about you going to France. Told me about Rob. It wasn't difficult to figure out.'

'You got me.'

'No one's trying to "get you", Susannah. We just want to help.'

'I don't think you can, Mum.'

'I could try. If you'd talk to me.'

Susannah sighed. She wasn't even sure where to begin. Wasn't sure, any more, where this story originated. Was it with Douglas or with Rob? Falling out of love, or into it?

'Can you try, love? Just try?'

She looked at her mum's concerned face, and felt her own contort with sudden tears. 'Oh, Mum. It's all such a huge bloody mess.'

'What is?'

'My life. My entire life.'

'Sweetheart!'

'It's all going wrong. It's all running away from me. I can't control any of it.'

'That's not true. You've left Douglas, I take it?'

Susannah nodded.

'Well, that needed you to take charge of it, God knows. Your dad and I have known for ages that he wasn't making you happy.'

'You knew?'

Rosemary nodded. 'Of course. We all did. It had been such a long time since the two of you had been properly together. I hated to see it.'

'You never said.'

'You wouldn't have listened. You had to get there on your own.'

'Well, I got there. I moved out. It's all over.'

Hurt flashed briefly across Rosemary's face.

'I'm sorry I hadn't told you, Mum.'

She swiped the apology away. 'It doesn't matter. The important thing is that you did it. You'd have told us, when you were ready.'

Susannah wondered whether Rob would come looking for her wondering why she hadn't filed out of the church door with the others but it was quiet.

'And Rob? What about him?'

'Rob's married, Mum.'

If Rosemary's middle-class suburban sensibilities were ruffled, she had the presence of mind not to let her face betray her, and even in the midst of her distress, Susannah was grateful for that.

'But he loves you?'

Susannah nodded. He did, didn't he? Hadn't he said so? 'And I love him. I know what we're doing is wrong, Mum. I know it. I don't want to hurt anyone. Nor does Rob. But I'm doing it anyway. That's what I mean about my life being out of control. That's not me that's not who I am ...'

'So, why ... ?' Mum's tone wasn't judgmental, or even harsh. She was trying, Susannah knew, really trying to understand.

But Susannah struggled to find the words to explain it. 'Because I have nothing else, Mum. Because I'm forty years old, and I've missed it all. I haven't got anything. I haven't got a husband or a child. I haven't got a proper home any more. Christ Almighty could I sound any more pathetic? But this is where I am. Because it feels like he's the only man who ever loved me properly. Because grabbing at second chances feels like all I have left.'

And so now, because he seemed to need it, and because she didn't know what else to do, Susannah gave Rob space to do what he needed. It was ironic, really. It was one of Douglas's big words. Space. That's what he needed, when he retreated upstairs, away from her and the kids, to the whisky and the jazz. That's what he claimed he was giving her, even though at the time she hadn't wanted it.

She didn't want it now. She wanted to be with Rob. She wanted to hold him while he cried, and feed him and clean his clothes. Dress him, and smooth his hair.

He had practical things to do. Things to sort out. Lois was his priority, and she understood that. At least, with whichever part of her brain wasn't screaming and crying for his attention. It occurred to her, one long lonely evening with too much red wine, that maybe Helena felt exactly that way, sitting in desert fatigues, thousands of miles away, unable to comfort her husband. That they had this feeling in common. They both made him feel guilty, too too much for either of them to help now. They had that in common as well.

And this new life went on, with its unfamiliar landscape. If my life were a film, she thought, this would be the section with no dialogue, where they play an apposite soundtrack over me going through my everyday routines. Here I am at the drycleaner's. Now I'm finding out where in my new neighbourhood sells the freshest fruit. I'm on the underground, and then I'm sitting in a meeting, gesticulating, maybe even smiling, though be sure that the camera will catch my far-off look when no one else is watching. I'm sticking a ready meal in the microwave and pouring a glass of wine. I'm lying awake in the bed, moonlight on my sleepless face. Here I am with my best friend, who is really just a pale, wan, weak shadow of the bright firefly she used to be before this illness and the treatment for it, and we're so used to this by now, this new Amelia, that we don't even look horrified. I carry the coffees and the magazines and she just tries to keep her head high and we talk about anything and everything except him, because the peace between us is precious and hard won. And all of this time he's not with me. What would the song be? And what might the audience think of me? When I'm crying on the sofa, hugging myself because there is no one else here to hold me, do they feel sorry for me, or do they condemn me to all that I deserve?

She avoided home. She was embarrassed by breaking down with her mother, ashamed to see her father. Dad took to leaving messages on her answering machine in the flat. One every couple of days. He rang when he knew she wasn't there, in the middle of the day. 'I know you don't feel like talking, love,' he said, the first time. 'But I thought listening might be okay. I just wanted to say that I love you. And so does your mum. And we're here.' And he was right, as he so often was. Listening was okay, and she was grateful.