He knew he’d been an idiot to come here. He stood where he was, fixed in the well-mannered paralysis of a guest who has been left alone, and humbled by the yeasty efficiency of this strange kitchen. He sensed the presence of the man who owned it, Robin Woodfield, with his capable country name, underlying or impregnating everything around him, and this was a bleaker challenge than he had anticipated. Justin had taken a clear, cowardly and sensible decision to swing along as if Alex and he were no more than good old friends. But Alex himself was petrified by the crackle of undead emotions. There was a squeak of floorboards above and the dulled coming and going across the ceiling of Justin’s heavyish footsteps. Was their bedroom there then, with the warm chimney behind the bedstead, and baking smells rising through the floor? Alex gripped the back of the chair he was standing by, and then let it go, with doubting relief, like someone who thought for a moment he had seen a ghost.

And here Justin physically was, in crumpled linen shorts and trodden-down moccasins, which Alex remembered from earlier summers, and a baggy white T-shirt with the signature of Gian-lorenzo Bernini, hugely magnified, disappearing round the sides. “I see you’re wearing Bernini,” Alex said.

Justin ignored him with a half-smile which hinted that he did indeed imagine Bernini to be a couturier. “Do you want an aperitif? And then I’ll show you round.” He plucked open the tall clinking door of the fridge and reached in for a jug of bloody Mary, from which he filled two virtually pint-size glasses. “Come and see the house.” Alex followed him through a low, latched door, with an unannounced step down beyond, on which he jolted upright and hit his head on a beam. “Watch out for the vernacular detail, dear,” said Justin.

Several tiny vernacular rooms had been knocked into one to form the cottage’s main space, and floor-length windows opening on to the rear garden let in a modern requirement of light and air.