Mrs. Antrobus, ejected from the duvet, stalked indignantly into the kitchen.
Later, the lights came on, drowning the tiny flame of the candle which, rekindled, had started to splutter in its saucer on the table.
He stroked the hair from Roz’s face.
“You are quite the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said.
She smiled wickedly.
“And I thought I was too thin?”
His dark eyes softened “I knew you were lying about that blasted answer phone He ran his hands over her silky arms, gripping them suddenly with urgent fingers. She was completely addictive. He plucked her up and sat her astride his lap.
“I’ve been dreaming about this.”
“Were they nice dreams?”
“Not a patch on the real thing.”
“Enough,” she said even later, sliding away from him and pulling on her clothes.
“What are you planning to do about this arrest warrant?”
He ignored the question and stirred the photographs on her coffee table.
“Is this your husband?”
“Ex-husband.” She threw him his trousers.
He pulled them on with a sigh, then isolated a close-up of Alice.
“And this must be your daughter,” he said evenly.
“She looks just like you.”
“Looked,” Roz corrected him.
“She’s dead.”
She waited for the apology and the change of subject, but Hal smiled and touched a finger to the laughing face.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“What was her name?”
“Alice.”
He examined the picture closely.
“I remember falling in love with a little girl just like her when I was six. I was very insecure and I used to ask her every day how much she loved me. She always answered in the same way. She would hold her hands out, like this’ he spread his palms apart, like a fisherman demonstrating the length of a fish ‘and say: this much.”
“Yes,” said Roz, remembering, “Alice always measured love with her hands. I’d forgotten.”
She tried to take the photograph away, but he moved it out of her reach and tilted it to the light.
“There’s a very determined glint in her eyes.”
“She liked her own way.”
“Sensible woman. Did she always get it?”
“Most times. She had very decided views. I remember once…” But she fell silent and didn’t go on.
Hal shrugged into his shirt and started to button it.
“Like mother, like daughter. I bet she had you wound round her little finger before she could walk. I’d have enjoyed seeing someone get the better of you.”
Roz held a handkerchief to her streaming eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Being embarrassing.”
He pulled her against his shoulder and rested his cheek against her hair. What a terrible indictment of Western society it was, that a mother should be afraid to shed tears for her dead daughter in case she embarrassed someone.
“Thank you.” She saw the question in his eyes.
“For listening,” she explained.
“It was no hardship, Roz.” He could sense how insecure she was.
“Are you going to agonise over this all night and wake up tomorrow morning wishing you hadn’t told me about Alice?”
He was far too perceptive. She looked away.
