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out a little dish of virgin olive oil for dipping the bread into, disregarding her protests that she couldn’t eat. She watched his delicate musician’s fingers slicing tomatoes, fastidiously fanning out avocado, laying out bread and cheese, all on a huge platter. This was a side to Jonathan she’d never seen before, and she was amazed. He opened a bottle of Beaujolais. She’d already had more than enough alcohol tonight, but perhaps the wine might help her to sleep. She drank obediently and when the food was ready, despite her protests, found she was hungry and ate ravenously.
    Jonathan joined her at the kitchen table but said little as they plucked food at random from the platter and ate, and when they’d finished, she did feel better.
    The telephone rang. She rushed to answer it, but it was only a wrong number. ‘I thought that might have been Mark,’ she said dispiritedly, returning to find Jonathan clearing the plates and putting them in the dishwasher, very domesticated. ‘I wish I knew where to contact him.’
    â€˜Hasn’t he left a number?’
    â€˜He must have forgotten.’ Jonathan raised his eyebrows. Mark wasn’t a forgetful, nor an inconsiderate man, as they both knew. ‘He left in a hurry,’ she added, a little lamely.
    Jonathan carried the coffee tray into the big room, put it down on the glass-topped table where the oranges had been and looked around for somewhere comfortable to sit.
‘It’s as bad as Membery, this place,’ he remarked with a shade of irritation. ‘Nowhere nice and soft to relax. It’s all ideas.’
    Fran smiled slightly. It had been said before. ‘You’ll find that chair’s OK. I’ll pour.’
    She knelt on the Berber rug while he sank into the Swedish leather sling chair which was, contrary to appearances, very comfortable. How long was he here for? she asked, as she handed him his coffee. Theoretically a week, he answered, meant to be a holiday, which he had to take when and where he could. But already he could see it dwindling: he had rehearsals at the Wigmore Hall beginning in a few days’ time, for a recital which would take place on Tuesday, when he was to be the guest cellist with a renowned string quartet for a performance of Schubert’s Quintet, marvellous but notoriously tricky. After that, Berlin, then Philadelphia, the merry-go-round starting up again.
    She sat back and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, studying his tired face. He’d been working in various parts of Central Europe for the last few weeks and his skin was tanned to a dark, coffee brown. He was thinner. He looked tired, his eyes shadowed. ‘Thanks for coming down, Jonathan, but I think you should go home, now, I’ll be OK. You’ve had a heck of a day. You look gutted.’
    â€˜Forget it. Nothing I’m not used to.’
    â€˜Don’t you ever get fed up, all this being on the move?’
    He shrugged, suddenly cagey. ‘Don’t have much choice, do I? Goes with the territory. And anyway, I wouldn’t want it any other way, it’s the life I’ve chosen, after all. I’ve no responsibilities,’ he added, ‘it’s not as though I was a family man.’
    She watched him as he took a nonchalant swig of coffee. Was that the way the wind was blowing? Could it be that Jilly was pressurizing him to settle down, give up this killing pace and take a nice teaching job somewhere? He
was sounding defensive, slightly guilty, as if he’d been through all this before. Don’t, Jilly, Fran warned her silently, that wasn’t the way to go with Jonathan, any more than it was with Mark. It wasn’t an easy life he led — and nor, of course, by extension, was Jilly’s — but did he really have any choice, did anyone, with his gifts? What alternative was there to this peripatetic life he had to live, while spreading his shining talent