“Not that I know.” She peered through the windscreen. The road began to slope upwards, and the lights from a village shimmered in the distance, perhaps a mile farther on. “I suppose we haven’t gone far enough.”

“What’s the place called?”

“Crofters Inn.”

“Decidedly, then, the sign didn’t say that. It must be an advertisement for someone’s line of employment. This is Lancashire, after all. I’m surprised the hotel isn’t called The Cauldron.”

“We wouldn’t have come had it been, my love. I’m becoming superstitious in my advancing years.”

“I see.” He smiled in the growing darkness. Her advancing years. She was only twenty-fi ve. She had all the energy and the promise of her youth.

Still, she looked tired — he knew she hadn’t been sleeping well — and her face was wan. A few days in the country, long walks, and rest were what she needed. She’d been working too much in the past several months, working more than he, keeping late hours in the darkroom and going out far too early on assignments only marginally connected to her interests in the first place. I’m trying to broaden my horizons, she would say. Landscapes and portraits aren’t enough, Simon. I need to do more. I’m thinking of a multimedia approach, perhaps a new show of my work in the summer. I can’t get it ready if I don’t get out there and see what’s what and try new things and stretch myself and make some more contacts and… He didn’t argue or try to hold her back. He just waited for the crisis to pass. They’d weathered several during the first two years of their marriage. He always tried to remember that fact when he began to despair of their weathering this.

She pushed a tangle of coppery hair behind her ear, put the car back into gear, and said, “Let’s go on to the village, then, shall we?”

“Unless you’d like to have your palm read fi rst.”

“For my future, you mean? I think not, thank you.”