Richard looked terrible. His chin was dark with stubble and his eyes bloodshot. He came hurrying in through the slapping doors and stopped, adjusted to the stillness, the quietness on the ward. He shrugged off his coat to show a baggy sweater and jeans and sat heavily beside me.

‘Have you seen her?’

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

His knees bounced with jumpiness. ‘They phoned me earlier. Doctor Anderson.’

I shrugged.

‘He sounded very positive. She’s responding well, he said.’

He leaned in, looked at me more closely.

‘You alright?’

My mouth twisted and I sat forward, hiding my face in my hands, and crumpled into tears. I hadn’t expected to… hadn’t wanted to; he couldn’t cope with crying.

‘I’m sorry.’ I sobbed like a child, snotty and hot. ‘It’s just – I keep thinking…’

His arm reached round my shoulders and he drew me to him, clumsily patted my hair. His body was tense but I didn’t care, I just folded into him, collapsed, wet-faced, into his chest.

‘I know. I know.’

You don’t, I thought. You have no idea. He loves you, Gracie, he does. But not the way I do. He was never overwhelmed by it. He didn’t suffer with love for you. That was one of our many differences.

And he left us both, left us for her. Don’t forget that. He isn’t the one putting you to bed alone every night, then sitting in a silent house with a glass of wine for company, worrying about money and childcare and wondering where it all went wrong.

‘It’s going to be alright.’ He let me cry on until the front of his jumper was damp, then pulled a huge handkerchief from his trouser pocket. He shook it open and handed it to me. It smelt of fresh ironing. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

How many times had he said that to me, over the years? I blew my nose, pulled away from him and dabbed at his jumper. All the promises he made to me, to us, he broke. How could I trust him now?

I pulled away from him and he took his arm back from my shoulders and fixed his eyes on the opposite wall while I recovered and we settled there, side by side, exhausted, watching the wall and waiting, waiting, waiting.

---

I was young when I met your father. Too young. I’d just moved down to London after university and everything felt unsettled. I was on a graduate scheme with a telecoms company and already deciding I was more interested in HR than the accounts department I’d joined. I had a small room in a flat, sharing with two other girls. They were nice enough but older and both had steady boyfriends and I found myself staying out as much as possible, keeping out of the way.

It was a barbeque. A friend of someone from work. I didn’t know many people and I wandered out of the kitchen to the garden, a drink in my hands, and there he was, a lean young man in a chef’s apron, bent low, blowing on smoky coals.

‘I’m guessing it’s going to be a while.’

He didn’t turn to look at me straight away but I saw his smile.

‘One of the ten rules of life. Always eat before a barbeque.’

I thought about that. ‘What are the other nine?’

He twisted at last to look me in the eye. He was thin-faced and handsome in those days and you know that smile.

‘I refer you to rule number one,’ he said. ‘Never reveal the other nine.’ Then he clapped his hand to his face in mock dismay. ‘Doh! Now you know two.’

He was just shy. I know that now. That was why he was standing all alone in the garden, pretending to be busy. That was why he spoke in riddles. But at the time, I was intrigued. He was three years older than me and had his own car and was training to be a solicitor and he seemed mature and safe.

I became his helper, carrying out raw burgers and sausages and pepper and mushroom kebabs from the kitchen, and watching as he sprayed oil and turned them. The irony is, that was probably the first and only time he cooked for me in all those years.

At the end of the evening, he gave me a lift home and listened, and I found myself telling him about work and my boss and the girls in the flat and how strange it was to get up at seven o’clock every morning and go to work on the Tube after all that time studying and how I missed it, sometimes – the freedom to lie about all day and read and think, but of course I was grateful too; I was lucky, I knew that, to have a job at all.

When I finished, it went very quiet in the car. He focused on the road and it gave me the chance to look at him. He had a strong profile. A straight nose.

‘I’m going to the South Bank tomorrow,’ he said. ‘To see what’s on at the Festival Hall. You could come, if you like?’

And that’s how it started.