“What’s wrong with you?” demanded Jennifer in her exasperation. “You were made for each other.” And maybe she was right. Or would have been. But for a memory I couldn’t discard.

“Who’s Louise?” Ann had asked me in our hotel room in Devon the morning after the fumbled night before. “You seemed to be speaking to her in your sleep. Something about a mirror.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“I don’t think so. The name was quite clear. I don’t mind… if it’s somebody you once… knew well.”

“No. It’s nobody I ever knew.”

The simple lack

Of her is more to me

Than others’ presence,

Whether life splendid be

Or utter black.

I have not seen,

I have no news of her;

I can tell only

She is not here, but there

She might have been.

One Sunday morning in the middle of October, I was surprised by a telephone call from Bella, inviting me to join Sir Keith and her for lunch at Tylney Hall, a country house hotel near Basingstoke. I accepted at once, even though I knew I wasn’t being asked for the pleasure of my company. The drive up was idyllic, autumnal sunshine bathing the trees and hedges in golden light. Some of the same fleeting lustre seemed to cling to my hosts, who were waiting for me on the terrace when I arrived. Sir Keith wasn’t just smiling. He was clearly extremely happy. A healthy glow warmed his features, a button-hole and jazzy tie signalling relaxation and indulgence. While Bella looked more than usually glamorous in a tight-waisted pink suit and shot-silk blouse. The glitter of diamonds drew my eyes to her wedding finger. And there, beneath an engagement ring I’d never seen before, was a plain band of gold.

“I wanted you to be one of the first to know, Robin,” said Bella as she kissed me. “We were married on Thursday.”

“I hope you’ll excuse the secrecy,” put in Sir Keith. “But we thought a low-key ceremony was best. You know how some people can be.”

“But not you, Robin,” said Bella, smiling sweetly. “We trust.”

“No,” I hurriedly replied. “Of course not. My… heartiest congratulations.”

So it was done. Bella had become the second Lady Paxton. No doubt she’d have preferred a grandiose celebration of this apogee of her social achievement, but Sir Keith had insisted on discretion and it was easy to understand why. Fifteen months wasn’t long, some would have said, to mourn a wife of twenty-three years. I’d have said so myself, come to that. Fifteen years wouldn’t have seemed sufficient to me. Not when Louise was the wife he’d lost. And the sort of wife he’d never find again.

Naturally, however, I gave them no hint of my true opinion. I supplied instead a fair impersonation of just what Bella wanted me to be: the token relative, expressing his well-bred pleasure at their news. We lunched lavishly and lengthily in the oak-panelled restaurant and I listened politely while they poured out their hopes and expectations of a new life together.

“I’m winding up the London practice and giving up my consultancies,” Sir Keith announced. “I’m sixty-one, so perhaps it’s about time. I suppose I’d have carried on for another five or six years if it hadn’t been for… Well, retirement is a fresh start. For both of us. We’ll be able to spend more time in Biarritz. And anywhere else Bella wants to go.”

“The girls have been quite splendid about it,” said Bella. “No resentment. No resistance. They just want their father to be happy. And I mean to see he is.”

“I suppose it’s easier because they’ve both flown the nest,” Sir Keith continued. “Sarah’s with an excellent firm of solicitors in Bristol. And Rowena’s started her course at the university there. She’s settled in well. Put last year’s… difficulties… firmly behind her. They’re sharing a flat in Clifton. Cosy little place. You ought to go up and see them. They’d like that.”

“Meanwhile,” said Bella, “Keith’s going to take me round the world in style on a luxury cruise ship. She sails from Southampton the day after tomorrow. Quite a honeymoon, don’t you think?”

But what I really thought I wasn’t about to let slip. As Bella must have realized. For when Sir Keith left us for a few minutes, her effervescent tone went suddenly flat.

“You reckon I’ve married him for his money and nothing else, don’t you, Robin?”

“No. There’s the title as well.”

“Very clever. But not true. I happen to like him a lot.”

“Like-but not love?”

“It might come to that. To start with, we can just have fun together.”

“I’m sure you’ll have fun, Bella. You always do.”

“Try it yourself. It’s not a bad way to live. Instead of vegetating in Petersfield.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then what are you doing? When I first met you, I thought you were the one member of your stick-in-the mud family who might actually do something with his life. Instead of which, here you are, working at that bloody factory like the rest of them. You’ve disappointed me, Robin. You really have.”

“Sorry about that,” I responded, smiling sarcastically. Then I saw her glance past me. Her husband was about to rejoin us. But before he did, there was time for me to add: “Let’s hope you don’t disappoint Sir Keith, Bella. And vice versa, of course.”

A month passed, halfway through which I received a triumphantly self-satisfied postcard from Bella, despatched during a stop-over in Egypt. “Pyramids are so much more interesting than cricket bats.” Then, one uneventful Friday afternoon at work, Sarah telephoned me from Bristol. “I’m in the office, so I can’t talk long.” She sounded more stilted than the length of time we’d been out of touch could account for. “Do you think… Look, would it be possible… for you to come up here… at short notice? Like… tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? That… er… could be tricky.” This was a lie prompted by some play-hard-to-get instinct. “I mean, I’d love to see you. And Rowena. But… why the rush?”

“Rowena’s why. I can’t explain over the phone. But it is urgent. She’s… not well. And I thought… But if you can’t make it…”

“No, no. It’s all right. I can rearrange things. What’s wrong with her?”

“I can’t go into it. Not now. But tomorrow…”

“OK. I suppose I could get up there around midday. I’ll need your address.”

“It’s a long way. Wouldn’t it be quicker if you drove to Reading and caught a train from there? Then I could pick you up at the station.”

“Oh there’s really no-”

“I’ve got a timetable for that line. We could fix it up now. It’d be easier this way, Robin. Believe me.” And something almost pleading in her tone stopped me offering any further resistance.

She was waiting for me at Temple Meads as promised, anxiety lending a briskness to her self-controlled manner. There was some other more lasting change at work as well. Her style of dress had altered-black sweater and leggings under a short snappy overcoat-but no more so than the transition from student to professional lawyer could have explained. Her appearance was designed, if anything, to conceal her personality. And perhaps that’s what I noticed. An invisible barrier between us. A layer of caution her mother’s death had temporarily peeled away. Now, it was back in place.

An exchange of platitudes about our careers carried us as far as her car. I didn’t ask-though I wondered-if collecting me from the station was a ploy to give her time to prepare me for what was awaiting us in Clifton. Rowena, presumably. Who wasn’t well. Whatever that meant.

What it meant Sarah swiftly explained as we headed west along the riverside. The day was cold and grey, overnight fog still lingering. Autumn’s consolations were nowhere to be seen-or sensed. “Rowena tried to commit suicide last Monday, Robin. She’s all right now. But it was a serious attempt, according to the doctors. Aspirin, tranquillizers and gin in sufficient quantity to have killed her if I hadn’t popped back to the flat at lunchtime-which I don’t normally do.”