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her desk again, alone in her office, Barbara found it difficult to concentrate on work. There were contracts to peruse but she felt too exhilarated to get down to it. So she closed her eyes and went over in her mind the previous evening with Hugh. The little blue flower by her plate; the care he had lavished on the preparation of the meal; his gentleness and humour; the way he looked at her. Everything. Everything.

She got up from her desk and returned to the window. The man in the attic flat opposite had appeared again. He was gazing at the red flowers he had placed outside on the lead surface of the roof. He yawned and looked across in her direction.

She caught his eye. He was only thirty or forty yards away. He smiled at her. They had seen one another from time to time and had occasionally waved. Now Barbara opened the window and leaned out. The man opposite leaned out too a little way, his hand resting on the edge of his tub of flowers.

“I love your flowers,” shouted Barbara.

“Thanks,” shouted the man in return.

A gust of wind had blown up and Barbara had to raise her voice to be heard. “I’m terribly happy.”

The man made a thumbs-up gesture.

“I’ve just got engaged,” Barbara continued.

The man clapped his hands together and then, reaching forward, plucked one of his red flowers and threw it across to her. It was a lovely gesture, even if the flower fell far short of bridging the gap between them and dropped, a tiny Icarus out of the sky, tumbling down to the street below.

92. Caroline Goes to Lunch Again

IF BARBARA WAS CERTAIN that morning that she had found the man with whom she wanted to share her life, the same could not be said of Caroline. The final break with Tom, which could so easily have been messy, had proved to be simplicity itself. After his initial show of jealousy and resentment, manifesting itself in an almost immediately regretted bout of incivility towards James, Tom had proved to be perfectly reasonable. She suspected that they both wanted the break, and that his reluctance to let her go was no more than a vestigial sign of the feelings he had once had for her. Now it was done, and she was free again. Or was she?

James was a problem. She was becoming very used to his company—so used to it, in fact, that she found herself feeling dissatisfied and at odds on days when she did not see him. It was worrying, because it seemed to her that some sort of dependence was building up and she was not sure that that was what she wanted. Then there was also the question of James’s fundamental suitability. That he liked her was not in doubt, but could he ever be passionate about her? And if he could not, then what was the point of his being anything more than a friend?

That morning, James was not in the lecture room for the lecture on sixteenth-century Venetian painting. His absence was expected: he had told her that he was due to go for an interview for a position at a gallery; the interview was to be at eleven, and was to be followed by lunch.

“A bad sign,” Caroline had said. “If you go for a job and they ask you to lunch it’s a bad sign.”

James seemed surprised. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“They’re wanting to look at you in social surroundings,” she explained. “They want to see how you hold your knife and fork.”

James laughed. “Hello? This is the twenty-first century, you know! People don’t care about that sort of thing any more.”

Caroline defended herself. “I’m not so sure about that. They won’t be up-front about it, but they still do it. Or some do. And a gallery like that would definitely subscribe to that sort of thing. Look at their clientele. Look at the people who work in those galleries. They’re not exactly rough diamonds.”

James looked downcast. “Oh dear,” he said. “Do you think I should even bother to go?”

His tone made her rather regret having issued the warning. “Of course you should go. I was just telling you what I thought they might be doing. And anyway, I’m sure that your table manners are fine.”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Look, when you get a bread roll, you do break it, don’t you, rather than cut it?”

“You do.”

“And what do you do with smoked salmon? Do you put