Dexter sat in his seat in the very last carriage of the stationary train and waited for the other passengers to leave. He had no suitcase, just a small overnight bag on the seat next to him. On the table in front of him lay a brightly coloured paperback, on the cover a scratchy cartoon of a girl's face beneath the title Big Julie Criscoll Versus the Whole Wide World.

He was due to arrive on 15th July on the 15.55 from Waterloo.

Emma Morley got to the arrival gate at the Gare du Nord in good time and joined the crowd, the anxious lovers clutching flowers, the bored chauffeurs, sweaty in suits with their handwritten signs. Might it be funny to hold up a sign with Dexter's name on? she wondered. Perhaps with his name spelt incorrectly? It might make him laugh, she supposed, but was it worth the effort? Besides, the train was pulling in now, the waiting crowd edging towards the gate in anticipation. A long hiatus before the doors hissed open, then the passengers spilled out onto the platform and Emma pressed forward with the friends and families, lovers and chauffeurs, all craning to see the arriving faces.

Belleville, Paris

She set her own face into the appropriate smile. The last time she saw him, things had been said. The last time she saw him, something had happened.

He had finished the book just as the train entered the Paris suburbs. It was the first novel he had finished in some months, his sense of mental prowess mitigated by the fact that the book was aimed at eleven- to fourteen-year-olds and contained pictures. Waiting for the carriage to clear, he turned once more to the inside of the back cover and the black and white photograph of the author and looked at it intently, as if committing her face to memory. In an expensive-looking crisp white shirt she sat a little awkwardly on the edge of a bentwood chair, her hand covering her mouth at just the moment that she burst into laughter. He recognised the expression and the gesture too, smiled, and placed the book in his bag, picked it up and joined the last few passengers as they waited to step down onto the platform.

The last time he had seen her, things had been said. Something had happened. What would he tell her? What would she say? Yes or no?

While she waited she played with her hair, willing it to grow longer. Shortly after arriving in Paris, dictionary in hand, she had plucked up the courage to go to a hairdresser -- un coiffeur -- to have her hair cropped. Though embarrassed to say it out loud, she had wanted to look like Jean Seberg in A Bout de Souffle, because after all if you're going to be a novelist in Paris you might as well do it properly. Now three weeks later, she no longer wanted to cry when she saw her reflection, but even so her hands kept going to her head as if adjusting a wig. With a conscious effort she turned her attention to the buttons on her brand new dove grey shirt, bought that morning from a shop, no, a boutique, on Rue de Grenelle. Two buttons undone looked too prim, three undone showed cleavage. She unfastened the third button, clicked her tongue and turned her attention back to the passengers. The crowd was thinning out now and she was starting to wonder if he had missed the train when she finally saw him.

He looked broken. Gaunt and tired, his face was shaded with scrappy stubble that didn't suit him, a prison beard, and she was reminded of the potential for disaster that this visit carried with it. But when he saw her he started to smile and quicken his pace, and she smiled too, then started to feel self-conscious as she waited at the gate wondering what to do with her hands, her eyes. The distance between them seemed immense; smile and stare, smile and stare for fifty metres? Forty-five metres. She looked at the floor, up into the rafters. Forty metres, she looked back at Dexter, back at the floor. Thirty-five metres…

While covering this vast distance, he was surprised to notice how much she had changed in the eight weeks since he had last seen her, the two months since everything had happened. Her hair had been cut very short, a fringe brushed across her forehead, and she had more colour in her face; the summer face that he remembered. Better dressed too: high shoes, a smart dark skirt, a pale grey shirt unbuttoned a touch too far, showing brown skin and a triangle of dark freckles below her neck. She still didn't seem to know what to do with her hands or where to look, and he was starting to feel self-conscious too. Ten metres. What would he say, and how would he say it? Was it a yes or no?

"I like this." He brushed his thumb across her short fringe. "There's a word for it, isn't there?"

"Of course I had to meet you. Tourist."

"Really, you've got the features for it." He held her at the top of her arms, taking her all in. "It's like there's a fancy-dress party and you've come as Sophisticated Parisienne."

His hand touched the short hair at the back of her neck. "Well I think it suits you."

"You didn't have to meet me."

"Gamine. You look gamine."

"You should have seen it two weeks ago. I looked like a collaborator!" His face didn't move. "I went to a Parisian hairdresser for the first time. Terrifying! I sat in the chair, thinking Arrêtez-vous, Arrêtez-vous! The funny thing is even in Paris they ask you about your holidays. You think they're going to talk about contemporary dance or can-man-ever-truly-be-free? but it's 'Que faites-vous de beau pour les vacances? Vous sortez ce soir?'" Still his face was fixed. She was talking too much, trying too hard. Calm down. Don't riff. Arrêtez-vous.

He quickened his pace towards her, and then finally they were embracing.

"Not sure I've got the features for it."

"Not in the least."

"Butch?"

"Not butch?"

"But a High-Class Call Girl."

"Or a Call Girl."

"Well even better." She touched his chin with her knuckle, the stubble there. "So what have you come as then?"

"Well at least you're not bitter," she said, reaching for the nearest off-the-shelf remark.

"Not just yet." She took him by the hand. "Come on, let's go, shall we?"

"I've come as Fucked-up Suicidal Divorcee." The remark was glib and he regretted it immediately. Barely off the platform, and he was spoiling things.

"Exactly. A garret."

"Do you want me to get back on the train?"

"A garret."

They stepped outside the Gare du Nord into the stifling fume-filled air; a typical Parisian summer day, muggy, with thick grey clouds threatening rain. "I thought we'd go for a coffee first, near the canal. It's a fifteen-minute walk, is that alright? Then another fifteen minutes to my flat. I have to warn you though, it's nothing special. In case you're imagining parquet floors and big windows with fluttering curtains or something. It's just two rooms over a courtyard."

In anticipation of this journey, Emma had memorised a scenic walk, or as scenic as possible in the dust and traffic of the north-east. I'm moving to Paris for the summer, to write. Back in April, the idea had seemed almost embarrassingly precious and fey, but she was so bored with married couples telling her that she could go to Paris at any time that she had decided actually to do it. London had turned into one enormous crèche, so why not get away from other people's children for a while, have an adventure? The city of Sartre and De Beauvoir, Beckett and Proust, and here she was too, writing teenage fiction, albeit with considerable commercial success. The only way she could make the idea seem less hokey was to settle as far away as she could from tourist Paris, in the working-class 19th arrondissement on the border of Belleville and Ménilmontant. No tourist attractions, few landmarks…

"A writer's garret."

"-- but it's really lively, and cheap, and multi-cultural and… God, I was about to say it's very 'real'."

"You look fantastic."

"Meaning what, violent?"

"No, really. You look beautiful."

"So, shall we have wine, or --?"

"I think Paris suits you."

"I haven't. Not really."

"It does."

"Do I?"

Emma frowned and kept her eyes ahead, and they walked a little further, trotting down stone steps to the Canal St Martin, and a little bar by the water's edge.

"Looks like Amsterdam," he said blandly, pulling out a chair.

"You've changed."

"No, just, I don't know, real Paris. I sound like a student, don't I? Thirty-five years old, living in a little two-room flat like I'm on a gap year."

"Actually it's the old industrial link to the Seine." Good God, I sound like some tour guide. "Flows under the Place de la République, under the Bastille, then out into the river." Just calm down. He's an old friend, remember? Just an old friend. They sat for a moment and stared at the water and she immediately regretted the self-consciously scenic choice of venue. This was terrible, like a blind date. She fumbled for something to say.

"Better not. I'm sort of off it."

"Oh. O-kay. Coffee then?"

"About three years ago. My wife and I came here on one of our famous mini-breaks. Four nights in the George Cinq." He flicked a sugar-cube into the canal. "So that was a waste of fucking money."

"Course she didn't understand a word. She'll probably bring us out a roast chicken!"

"When were you last in Paris?"

"Just a coffee."

"So I hear."

Nothing. Instead he sat grinding grains of sugar against the metal table with his thumbnail. She tried again, something innocuous.

The waitress arrived, dark, pretty and long-legged, but Dexter didn't even look up. There must be something seriously wrong, Emma thought, if he's not even ogling the waitress. She ordered in ostentatiously colloquial French, then smiled awkwardly at Dexter's raised eyebrow. "I've been taking lessons."

"Month or so. It's not an AA thing. Just trying to avoid it." He shrugged. "Nothing good ever came of it, that's all. Not a big deal."

"Oh. Really? For how long?"

Emma opened her mouth and closed it again. There was nothing to say. She had already made her "at least you're not bitter" remark.

In the small, stale room she glowered in the mirror and tugged at her fringe as if trying to pull more from her head. She sighed and told herself to calm down. The thing that happened, the event, it was just a one-off, not a big deal, he's just an old, old friend. She flushed the toilet for veracity's sake and stepped back out into the warm grey afternoon. On the table in front of Dexter was a copy of her novel. Warily, she sat back down, and poked it with her finger. "Where did this come from then?"

But Dexter blinked hard, shook his head then nudged her hand with his. "So what I thought we'd do for the next couple of days is, you can show me the sights, and I'll just mope about and make stupid remarks."

She smiled and nudged his hand back. "It's hardly surprising, what you've been through, are going through," and she covered his hand with her own. After a moment he covered her hand with his, she followed, covering his with hers, faster and faster, a children's game. But it was a piece of actors' business too, strained and self-conscious, and in her embarrassment she decided to pretend to need the bathroom.

"You mean Howards End. Howard's Way is something different."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Emma, I thought it was wonderful."

"No, really, I'm so proud of you. I mean I'm not a teenage girl or anything, but it really made me laugh. I read it straight through in one go. And I speak as someone who's been reading Howard's Way for the last fifteen years."

"Not funny, Dex."

"Well it's just a silly kid's book."

"Well thank you…"

"Whatever. I've never read anything straight through before."

"Well, the type is pretty large."

"No, you've got to. You're…" He read from the back of the book "… the 'most exciting children's author since Roald Dahl'."

"Can't get past page three."

"Have you read it yet?"

"Plus the fact that it's exciting and funny, and I'm so proud of you, Em. In fact --" He pulled a pen from his pocket. "I want you to sign it."

"And that was my favourite thing about it really, the big type. And the pictures. The illustrations are really funny, Em. I had no idea."

"I bought it at the train station. Great piles of it, there were. It's everywhere, Em."

He sat down and placed it in his bag, and she leant across the table, as if returning to business. "So. I've got to ask. How are things?"

"Says the publisher's nine-year-old niece." He poked her with the pen. "I'm still not signing it, Dex."

"Go on. I insist." He stood, pretending to need the toilet. "I'm going to leave it there, and you've got to write something. Something personal, with today's date, in case you get really famous and I need the cash."

In the small rank cubicle, Dexter stood and wondered how long he could keep this up. At some point they would need to talk, insane to tip-toe round the subject like this. He flushed the toilet for effect, washed his hands and dried them on his hair, then stepped back out onto the pavement, where Emma was just closing the book. He went to read the dedication, but she placed her hand on the cover.

"Have you spoken to her much?"

"Oh, fantastic. The divorce goes through in September, just before our anniversary. Almost two whole years of wedded bliss."

"When I'm not around, please."

He looked at her sharply. "Who from? Callum?"

"People feeling sorry for me."

"No. He's tried. Keeps leaving messages, like nothing's happened. "Alright mate! Give us a call." He thinks we should go out for a beer, and 'talk things through'. Maybe I should go. Technically he still owes me three weeks" wages."

"Yes, I heard."

"Not if I can help it. I mean we've stopped screaming abuse and throwing things, now it's just yes, no, hello, goodbye. Which is more or less all we said when we were married anyway. Did you hear, they've moved in with Callum now? Into his ridiculous mansion in Muswell Hill where we used to go to dinner parties --"

"Not as such. We're renting out that bloody house in Richmond, and the flat, so I'm living off that." He drank the dregs of his coffee and stared into the canal. "I don't know, Em. Eighteen months ago I had a family, a career -- not much of a career, but I had opportunities, I still got offers. People carrier, nice little house in Surrey --"

"Of course not! Just, you know -- people."

"Not sorry, just… concerned." He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "It's not a bad thing, Dex, people caring about you. Have you spoken to Callum?"

"Are you working yet?"

"You hated the people carrier."

"Well I'm glad you find the carnage of my marriage funny, Em."

Emma, for whom the opposite was now true, simply said. "It's not as bad as all that."

"You know what I think you should do?"

"What?"

"I just mean. I don't know. Just…" He looked into the canal and gave a theatrical sigh. "When I was younger everything seemed possible. Now nothing does."

"I didn't hate it."

"I don't find it funny, I just think self-pity's probably not the answer."

"So there's a bright side, is there? To your wife running off with your best mate --"

"Maybe…" She took a deep breath, and held the fingers of his hand. "Maybe you should beg Callum for your job back." He glared and jerked his hand away. "Joking! I'm joking!" she said and started to laugh.

"'My life is effectively over'?"

"Well, yes, I did hate that, but it was mine. And now all of a sudden I'm living in a bedsit in Kilburn with my half of the wedding list and I have… nothing. Just me and a shitload of Le Creuset. My life is effectively over."

"It's not self-pity, it's the facts."

"Which you hated."

"Like what?"

"And he wasn't your 'best mate', you hadn't spoken in years, that's just, I'm just saying… Okay, well for a start it's not a bedsit in Kilburn, it's a perfectly good two-bedroom flat in West Hampstead. I'd have killed to have a flat like that. And you're only there until you get your old flat back."

"Thirty-seven is still mid-thirties! Just about. And no, you don't have a job at this exact moment, but you're not exactly living on benefits. You've an income from rent, which is unbelievably lucky if you ask me. And lots of people change track late in life. It's fine to be miserable for a while, but you weren't that happy when you were married, Dex. I know, I had to listen to it all the time. 'We never talk, we never have fun, we never go out…' I know it's tough, but at some point you might be able to think of this as a new start! A new beginning. There are loads of things you could do, you just have to make a decision…"

"But I'm thirty-seven in two weeks! I'm practically middle-aged!"

"I don't know -- the media? You could try for some presenting jobs again?" Dexter groaned. "Okay, something behind the scenes? Producer or director or something." Dexter winced. "Or, or photography! You used to talk about photography all the time. Or food, you could, I don't know, do something with food. And if none of that works, you've always got that low two-two in Anthropology to fall back on." She patted the back of his hand for emphasis: "People will always need anthropologists." He smiled, then remembered he shouldn't be smiling. "You're a healthy, capable, financially stable moderately attractive father in your mid-to-late-thirties. You're… alright, Dex. You just need to get your confidence back, that's all."

"That was it. What did you think?"

He sighed and looked out at the canal. "So was that your pep-talk then?"

"Maybe we should move on then." She laid money on the table. "My flat's about twenty minutes away in that direction. We can walk, or get a taxi…" She went to stand, but Dexter didn't move.

"Oh come on --"

"I still want to jump in the canal."

"The worst of it is I really miss Jasmine." Emma sat again. "I mean it's sending me insane and it's not even like I was a good dad or anything."

"I wasn't, Em, I was useless, completely. I resented it, I didn't want to be there. All the time we were pretending we were this perfect family, I always thought this is a mistake, this isn't for me. I used to think wouldn't it be great to sleep again, to go away for the weekend, or just go out, stay up late, have fun. To be free, to have no responsibilities. And now I've got all of that back, and all I do is sit with my stuff still in cardboard boxes and miss my daughter."

"But you still see her."

"Once a fortnight, one lousy overnight stay."

"And I would! But even now you can see the fear in her eyes when her mum drives off; don't leave me here with this weird sad freak! I buy her all these presents, it's pathetic, there's a great pile of them every time she arrives, it's like Christmas morning every time, because if we're not opening presents I don't know what to do with her. If we're not opening presents she'll just start crying and asking for Mummy, by which she means Mummy and that bastard Callum, and I don't even know what to buy her, because every time I see her she's different. You turn your back for one week, ten days and everything's changed! I mean, she started walking for Christ's sake and I didn't see that happen! How can that be? How can I be missing that? I mean, isn't that my job? I haven't even done anything wrong, and all of a sudden…" His voice quavered for a moment, and quickly he changed tone, grabbing onto anger: "… and meanwhile of course that fucker Callum's there with them, in his big mansion in Muswell fucking Hill…"

"But you could see her more, you could ask for more time --"

"I don't mind."

But the momentum of his rage wasn't enough to prevent his voice cracking. Abruptly he stopped speaking, pressed his hands either side of his nose and opened his eyes wide, as if trying to suppress a sneeze.

"You okay?" she said, her hand on his knee.

He nodded. "I'm not going to be like this all weekend, I promise."

"Well I mind. It's… demeaning." He stood abruptly, and picked up his bag. "Please, Em. Let's talk about something else. Tell me something. Tell me about you."

They walked the length of the canal, skirting the edge of the Place de la République then turning east along rue du Faubourg St-Denis as she talked about her work. "The second one's a sequel. That's how imaginative I am. I'm about three-quarters of the way through. Julie Criscoll goes on this school trip to Paris and falls for this French boy and has all sorts of adventures, surprise suprise. That's my excuse for being here. 'Research purposes'."

"So I'm told. Well enough for them to pay for two more."

"And the first one's doing well?"

"It's not just about that though, is it?"

"Nothing at all. I mean I don't mind. I love it. But I'd like to write a grown-up book one day. That's what I always wanted to write, this great, angry state-of-the-nation novel, something wild and timeless that reveals the human soul, not a lot of silly stuff about snogging French boys at discos."

He nudged her.

"You're kidding me!"

"What does that mean?"

"'fraid so. Julie Criscoll's what they call a franchise. That's where the money's at apparently. Got to have a franchise! And we're talking to TV people. For a show. An animated kid's show, based on my illustrations."

"I'm pleased for you, that's all." His arm curled round her shoulders and squeezed. "An author. A proper author. You're finally doing what you always wanted to do." They walked like this, a little self-consciously and awkwardly, the bag in the other hand banging against his leg, until the discomfort became too much and he took his arm away.

"I know. Stupid, isn't it? I'm working in 'the media'! I'm the Associate Producer!"

"What?"

"Really? Two more sequels?"

"Maybe not. And maybe that's just what happens; you start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few good jokes. God, listen to me. My life in art!"

Dexter smiled that maddening smile.

They walked on, and gradually their mood lifted. The blanket of cloud had broken and Faubourg St-Denis was taking on a new lease of life as the evening began. Scrappy, gaudy and full of noise and life, parts of it almost souk-like, Emma kept stealing glances at Dexter, an anxious tour guide. They crossed the wide bustling Boulevard de Belleville and continued east along the border of the 19th and 20th. Climbing the hill, Emma pointed out the bars she liked, talked about the local history, Piaf and the Paris Commune of 1871, the local Chinese and North African communities, and Dexter half-listened, half-wondered what would happen when they finally arrived at her flat. Listen, Emma, about what happened…

She nudged him. "What?!"

"Only you would go to Paris and find the bit that's most like Hackney."

"… it's sort of like the Hackney of Paris," she was saying.

Eventually they turned down a quiet side street and came to what looked like a garage door where Emma punched a code into a panel and pressed against the heavy gate with her shoulder. They entered into an enclosed courtyard, cluttered and rundown and overlooked by apartments on all sides. Washing hung from rusting balconies, shabby pot plants wilted in the evening sun. The courtyard echoed with the noise of competing TVs and children playing soccer with a tennis ball, and Dexter fought down a little shiver of irritation. Rehearsing this occasion, he had pictured a tree-shaded square, louvred windows, a view of Notre-Dame perhaps. This was all fine enough, chic even in an urban, industrial way, but something more romantic would have made this all a little easier.

"It's interesting. I think so, anyway."

She pressed the light switch, which was on a timer, and they began the steep ascent of the wrought-iron stairs, tightly curled and seemingly sheering away from the wall in places. Emma was suddenly conscious of the fact that Dexter's eyes were exactly level with her backside and she began nervously reaching back to her skirt to smooth down creases that weren't there. As they reached the landing of the third floor the timer of the light clicked off, and they found themselves in darkness for a moment, Emma fumbling behind her to find his hand, and leading him up the stairs until they stood outside a door. In the dim light from the transom, they smiled at each other.

"Like I said, it's nothing grand. Fifth floor, I'm afraid."

"Here we go. Chez Moi!"

From her bag, she produced an immense bunch of keys, and began work on a complex sequence of locks. After some time the door opened onto a small but pleasant flat with scuffed grey-painted floorboards, a large baggy sofa and a small neat desk overlooking the courtyard, its walls lined with austere-looking books in French, the spines a uniform pale yellow. Fresh roses and fruit stood on the table in a small adjoining kitchen, and through another door Dexter could glimpse the bedroom. They had yet to discuss the sleeping arrangements, but he could see the apartment's only bed, a large cast-iron affair, quaint and cumbersome like something from a farmhouse. One bedroom, one bed. Evening sunlight shone through the windows, drawing attention to the fact of it. He glanced at the sofa to check that it didn't fold out into anything. Nope. One bed. He could feel the blood pumping in his chest, though perhaps this was just from the long climb.

She closed the door and there was a silence.

Chivalrously, Dexter stepped back to allow her to swallow. "Sorry about that."

"So. Here we are!"

"It's great."

"Okay now?"

"Fine, but Dexter, I have to tell you…"

"It's okay. Kitchen's through here." The climb and nerves had made Emma thirsty and she crossed to the fridge, opened it and took out a bottle of sparkling water. She had begun to drink, taking great gulps, when suddenly Dexter's hand was on her shoulder, then he was in front of her somehow, and kissing her. Her mouth still full of the effervescing water, she pursed her lips tight to prevent it squirting in his face like a soda siphon. Leaning away, she pointed at her cheeks, absurdly ballooned like a puffer fish, flapped her hands and made a noise that approximated to "hold on a moment".

"S'okay. You took me by surprise, that's all." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

And he was kissing her again, clumsily pressing too hard as she leant backwards over the kitchen table, which suddenly juddered noisily across the floor, so that she had to twist away at the waist to stop the vase of roses falling.

"How?"

"Oops."

"But the thing is --"

"Surprised he's French, or surprised that I should actually have a boyfriend?"

"I've sort of met someone."

"No, I'm just surprised, that's all."

"A man. A guy. I'm seeing this guy."

"-- did you meet him?"

"And where did you meet him?"

"He's called Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre Dusollier."

He actually took a step backwards.

"Two months! I've been here two months, and I met Jean-Pierre a month ago."

"You've met someone."

"Well, um, I was having dinner by myself, reading a book, and this guy was with some friends and he asked me what I was reading…" Dexter groaned and shook his head, a craftsman deriding another's handiwork. Emma ignored him and walked through to the living room. "And anyway, we got talking --"

"A guy. Right. Okay. So. Who?"

"No, Dex, he's Welsh."

"In a little bistro near here."

"No, just that -- well it's pretty quick, isn't it? I mean you've only been here a couple of weeks. Did you unpack first, or…"

"He's French?"

"Bit self-conscious --"

"A little bistro. Right. How?"

"The thing is, Dex --"

"Sorry about that, I just --"

Dexter followed. "What, in French?"

"I don't know, just very cool and laidback and --"

"Well what the hell is that supposed to mean, 'very French'?"

"Wears a string of onions, rides a bike --"

"Jean-Pierre. He's nice. Very handsome, very charming. An amazing cook, he knows all about food, and wine, and art, and architecture. You know, just very, very… French."

"God, you can be unbearable sometimes --"

"No --"

"Yes, in French, and we hit it off, and now we're… seeing each other!" She flopped onto the sofa. "So. Now you know!"

"No but you've gone all sexy, playing with your hair, your shirt unbuttoned --"

"I'm not!" With feigned nonchalance, he turned to look out the window into the courtyard below. "So what's he like then, this Jean…"

"Dexter!"

"What, you mean rude?"

"Don't patronise me, Dexter. Like I'm some lonely old lady --"

"Sexy?--"

"Right. I see." His eyebrows rose then lowered again, his features contorting as he explored ways to sulk and smile at the same time. "Well. Good for you, Em, that's really great."

"Dirty?"

"I didn't say 'sexy'."

"There's no reason for you to be -- why are you anyway?"

"Look at you, you're glowing, you've got a little sweaty glow --"

"For a break. To get away from things. See the sights!"

"I don't know," he mumbled at the windowpane. "Not this."

"I'm not being mean, I just thought…" He stopped, and turned to look out of the window, his forehead on the glass. "I wish you'd told me before I came. I'd have booked a hotel."

"Being so… mean, like I've done something wrong!"

"What?"

"You can still stay here! I'll just sleep with Jean-Pierre tonight." Even with his back to her she could tell that he had flinched. "Sleep at Jean-Pierre's tonight." She leant forward on the sofa, her face cupped in both hands. "What did you think was going to happen, Dexter?"

"I came to talk about what happened. You and me, finally getting together." He picked at the putty on the windows with his fingernail. "I just thought it would have been a bigger deal for you. That's all."

"Such a stupid word, 'sexy'--"

"But you're having a lot of sex, right?"

"Why do you think I came to see you, Em?"

"Well, I'm sorry."

"Dexter, why are you being so --?"

"And I just thought it might have been something worth remarking on! Next thing I know you've run off to Paris and thrown yourself under the nearest Frenchman --"

"Hang on a minute -- you're annoyed because we haven't examined our feelings? You're annoyed because you think I should have waited for you?"

"I don't mean how many acts of intercourse, Dex, I mean the occasion, the night, we spent one night together."

He did so, petulant, his arms crossed high on his chest, and Emma couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm not sulking."

"What, to ask your permission?"

"So why are you sulking?"

"No, to see how I felt about it!"

"We've slept together once, Dexter."

"I don't know," he mumbled. "Maybe!"

"My God, Dexter, are you… are you actually jealous?"

"Of course I'm not!"

"Three times!"

"Look at me then!"

"I didn't 'run off', the ticket was already booked! Why do you think that everything that happens happens because of you?"

"And you couldn't phone me up maybe, before you…?"

"What? What?" he asked, indignant.

"How is this ironic?"

"Well you do realise there's a certain amount of irony in this, Dex."

"You getting all conventional and… monogamous all of a sudden."

He said nothing for a moment, then turned back to the window.

More conciliatory, she said, "Look -- we were both a little drunk."

"I wasn't that drunk…"

"You took your trousers off over your shoes, Dex!" Still he wouldn't turn around. "Don't stand over by the window. Come and sit here, will you?" She lifted her bare feet up onto the sofa and curled her legs beneath her. He bumped the pane of glass with his forehead once, twice, then without meeting her eye, crossed the room and slumped next to her, a child sent home from school. She rested her feet against his thighs.

He said nothing. She poked him with her toes, and when he finally looked at her, she spoke. "Okay. I'll go first." She took a deep breath. "I think that you were very upset and a little bit drunk and you came to see me that night and it just… happened. I think with all the misery of breaking up with Sylvie, and moving out and not seeing Jasmine, you were feeling a little lonely and you just needed a shoulder to cry on. Or to sleep with. And that's what I was. A shoulder to sleep with."

"Alright, you want to talk about that night? Let's talk about it."

"You're thirty-five!"

"Not pity, compassion."

"It is. It was. Back in the late Eighties."

"… and you only slept with me to make me feel better?"

"So why not now?"

She sighed. "We've known each other a long time, Dex."

"Well there are worse reasons to sleep with someone. You should know."

"That's what I think."

"But pity sex?"

"I just feel our time has passed, that's all," she said.

"… but that's not the point."

"I know. I just thought it might be a good idea. Dex and Em, Em and Dex, the two of us. Just try it for a while, see how it worked. I had thought that's what you wanted too."

"Don't tease me, Em."

"So that's what you think?"

"Yes, much better."

"Because. It's too late. We're too late. I'm too tired."

"I'm not, I just… it was nothing to do with pity, and you know it. But it's… complicated. Us. Come here, will you?" She nudged him once more with her foot and after a moment he tipped over like a felled tree, his head coming to rest against her shoulder.

"Did you feel better?"

"Well so did I, so there you go. It worked."

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the children shouting in the courtyard below, the sound of distant televisions.

"How do you know, unless we give it a try?"

"And you like him? This guy."

"I do. I really, really like him."

"So that night --" He pressed his thumb against the hard skin of her sole. "So was it really so terrible?"

"I know they are."

"No, not really."

"No, Dexter, it was not such a terrible night, in fact it was one of the more memorable nights of my life. But I still think we should leave it at that." She swung her legs off the sofa and sidled up until their hips were touching, taking his hand, her head on his shoulder now. Both stared forwards at the bookshelves, until Emma finally sighed. "Why didn't you say all this, I don't know -- eight years ago?"

"Your little toe's like this little nub of sweetcorn."

"Stop playing with it then."

He reached down, and took her left foot in his hand, still dusty from the street. "My timing isn't great, is it?"

She poked him sharply in the hip with her other foot. "Don't fish, Dexter."

"Dexter -- I have met someone else!"

"No really, tell me."

He examined the foot he held in his hand. The toenails were painted red, but chipped, the smallest nail gnarled and barely there. "Your feet are disgusting."

After a moment she stood abruptly, picked up a cushion, threw it sharply at his head and walked towards the bedroom. "Shut up, Dex."

He reached for her hand as she passed, but she shook it free. "Where are you going?"

She lifted her head to look at him sideways. "And now you've stopped having fun, you think "good old Em, give her a go --""

"I'm not the consolation prize, Dex. I'm not something you resort to. I happen to think I'm worth more than that."

"Uh-huh. Eight o'clock." She started unbuttoning the tiny buttons on her shirt, then gave up, pulled it impatiently over her head and whipped it at the floor. "We're all going out for dinner! The three of us!"

"And I think you're worth more than that too. That's why I came here. You're a wonder, Em."

"That's not what I meant --"

"To have a shower, get changed. Can't sit around here all night!" she shouted from the other room, angrily pulling clothes from the wardrobe and dropping them onto the bed. "After all, he'll be here in twenty minutes!"

"Jean-Pierre's coming here?"

"Who'll be here?"

"Who do you think? My NEW BOYFRIEND!"

"Don't know, too busy trying to have… fun, I suppose."

"I'm afraid so. It's all been arranged." She was naked now, and furious, at herself, at the situation. "We're taking you to the very restaurant where we first met! The famous bistro! We're going to sit there at the same table and hold hands and tell you all about it! It's all going to be very, very romantic." She slammed the bathroom door, shouting through it. "And in no way awkward!"

He let his head fall backwards and let out a long low groan. "Oh God. Do we have to?"

Dexter heard the sound of the shower running, and lay back on the sofa, looking at the ceiling, embarrassed now at this ridiculous expedition. He had thought that he had the answer, that they could rescue each other, when in truth Emma had been fine for years. If anyone needed rescuing, it was him.

And maybe Emma was right, maybe he was just feeling a little lonely. He heard the ancient plumbing gurgle as the shower ceased, and there it was again, that terrible, shameful word. Lonely. And the worst of it was that he knew it was true. Never in his life had he imagined that he would be lonely. For his thirtieth birthday he had filled a whole night-club off Regent Street; people had been queuing on the pavement to get in. The SIM card of his mobile phone in his pocket was overflowing with telephone numbers of all the hundreds of people he had met in the last ten years, and yet the only person he had ever wanted to talk to in all that time was standing now in the very next room.

Could this be true? He scrutinised the notion once again and finding it to be accurate he stood suddenly with the intention of telling her straightaway. He walked towards the bedroom then stopped.

He could see her through the gap in the door. She was sitting at a small 1950s dressing table, her short hair still wet from the shower, wearing a knee-length old-fashioned black silk dress, unzipped at the back to the base of her spine, opened wide enough to see the shade beneath her shoulder blades. She sat motionless and erect and rather elegant, as if waiting for someone to come and zip the dress up, and there was something so appealing about the idea, something so intimate and satisfying about that simple gesture, both familiar and new, that he almost stepped straight into the room. He would fasten the dress, then kiss the curve between her neck and her shoulder and tell her.

Instead he watched silently as she reached for a book on the dressing table, a large well-thumbed French/English dictionary. She began to leaf through the pages then stopped suddenly, her head slumping forwards, both hands spanning her brow and pushing her fringe back as she groaned angrily. Dexter laughed at her exasperation, silently he thought, but she glanced towards the door and he quickly stepped backwards. The floorboards popped beneath his feet as he pranced absurdly towards the kitchen area, running both taps and moving cups around uselessly under running water as an alibi. After a while he heard the ting of the old-fashioned phone being picked up in the bedroom, and he turned off the taps so that he might overhear the conversation with this Jean-Pierre. A low, lover's murmur, in French. He strained to listen, failing to understand a single word.

"And how was Jean-Pierre?"

"Really? You did?"

Her fingers went to her throat. "Je suis très désolé, mais mes glandes sont gonflées," she croaked feebly. "Je pense que je peux avoir l'amygdalite."

"You have amazing vocab."

"I told him I had tonsillitis."

"Jean-Pierre."

"He isn't coming round."

They smiled at each other. Then, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to her, she quickly crossed the room in three long strides, took his face between her hands, and kissed him, and he placed his hands upon her back, finding the dress still unfastened, the skin bare and cool and still damp from the shower. They kissed like this for some time. Then, still holding his face in her hands, she looked at him intently. "If you muck me about, Dexter."

"Good. So. I should get changed. What time is he coming round again?"

"What?"

He wanted to laugh --

"Well, you know." She shrugged modestly. "Had to look it up."

Dexter turned.

"L'amy…?"

"He's fine. Just fine."

"I told him not to come round."

-- wanted to laugh so much, but he mustn't, not yet. He dried his hands. "What is that? Tonsillitis. In French?"

"L'amygdalite."

The bell sounded once again as she hung up. Some time passed, then she was standing in the doorway behind him. "Who was that on the phone?" he asked over his shoulder, matter-of-factly.

"I mean it, if you lead me on or let me down or go behind my back, I will murder you. I swear to God, I will eat your heart."

"I swear, I won't."

"I won't --"

"I won't do that, Em."

"You won't?"

"What's up?" he asked.

"I don't think you can," he said.

"Nothing. Oh, nothing. Just…" She looked up at him. "I thought I'd finally got rid of you."

And then she frowned, and shook her head, then put her arms around him once more, pressing her face into his shoulder, making a noise that sounded almost like rage.