It was a soft light, flickering and uncertain, promising everything and nothing. But he could no more deny it than he could deny his own self.

‘Is everything all right?’ asked the nurse from the doorway. ‘You haven’t buzzed.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said with an effort. ‘I just-got distracted.’

She smiled, following his gaze to the blossom-laden trees. ‘The spring is beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Beautiful.’

They arrived back at the school to find Mrs Yen, Dong’s mother, waiting with a worried look that cleared as soon as she saw him waving eagerly.

‘Perhaps you should take tomorrow off?’ Mrs Wu, the headmistress, asked when they were finally alone.

‘Thanks, but I won’t need to.’

‘Well, be sure. I don’t want to lose one of my best teachers.’

They had been friends since the day Olivia had joined the school, charged with instructing the children in English. Now Mrs Wu fussed over her kindly until she went to collect her bicycle and rode it to her apartment, ten minutes away.

She had moved in six months ago, when she’d arrived to work in Beijing. Then she had been distraught, fleeing England, desperately glad to be embraced by a different culture which occupied her thoughts and gave her no time to brood. Now her surroundings and her new life were more familiar, but there were still new discoveries to be made, and she enjoyed every day.

She had a settled routine for when she arrived home. After a large cup of tea, she would switch on the computer and enter a programme that allowed her to make video contact with Aunt Norah, the elderly relative in England to whom she felt closest.

London was eight hours behind Beijing, which meant that back there it was the early hours of the morning, but she knew Norah would be ready, having set her alarm to be sure.

Yes, there she was, sitting up in bed, smiling and waving at the camera on top of her computer screen. Olivia waved back.