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to him that he should want her. He tried to put the feelings from him and it also seemed, and this was strange, that in some ways they changed places. Edward’s work became less and less competent so that Gil began helping him, covering for him, making sure that William’s wrath did not come down on Edward. Edward was restless. It did not please him to stay at home by the fire – and the weather was foul. He would go into town and play billiards and drink and, to Gil’s surprise, his brother drank a great deal. He always asked Gil to go with him, which was an even bigger and much more pleasant surprise. Sometimes, Edward would not have reached home without him.
    At first Gil was flattered by the invitations, that his brother would introduce him to his friends, but it also occurred to him that if Helen had been waiting for him he would not have wanted to leave her. Sometimes she came to stay and Edwardtook her to the theatre or to see friends, but he did not often go to her parents’ house in Durham. Night after night, Edward played billiards. He would drink and laugh and call on Gil to admire the best shots. Often, he drank so much that he was not sober by morning.
    Sometimes they went to Toby’s house. He lived not far from Abby, though it was a much smaller house. Gil thought it strange inside, unlike any house he had seen before. The walls were painted white and there were no carpets, just polished wooden floorboards. There were no ornaments; everything was simple and uncluttered. There was a big garden at the back, but not much to see, all black and brown and bare-treed in the winter weather.
    ‘What do you think?’ Toby asked Gil on his first visit.
    ‘It’s like a monk’s cell.’
    Edward laughed so much that he choked. Toby grinned.
    ‘It’s so … sparse,’ Gil said.
    Toby went to the window and looked longingly down the garden.
    ‘In the summer I’m going to sit out there under the trees and drink wine.’
    Edward was leaning against the wooden shutter on one side of the window and Gil could see that he was also imagining himself there.
    Edward was silent on the way home. Everyone had gone to bed by then, but he would linger, not because he wanted to keep the day, Gil thought, but because he wanted to steal as much of the night as he could, as if the morning held some kind of terror. The wedding was a week away.
    ‘Come in by the fire and have some brandy with me,’ he said, and Gil went.
    In the small sitting-room, which was truly the only comfortable room in the house and everybody tended to go in there, the fire was kept burning brightly and the brandy decanter shone in the reflected fire, the housekeeper having discovered that theywould often finish their evening here. Edward poured the brandy and they sat down by the fire. Gil considered the dark liquid in his glass.
    ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
    ‘What?’ Edward stretched out his legs. He looked happier now than he had looked all day, as though brandy and the fire were his only pleasures.
    ‘Are you frightened of marrying Helen?’
    Edward looked at him.
    ‘Of bedding a woman? I have bedded women before.’
    ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’
    ‘What then?’
    ‘Of being different, the responsibility, the – the commitment. Does it weigh you down, only you seem so—’
    Edward didn’t answer straight away and then slowly.
    ‘Yes, it’s frightening and strange. What made you think that?’
    ‘You go out so much and you drink such a lot and … you take me with you like you had no company. You have Toby and your friends.’
    ‘I wanted to get something back. No, that’s not true. I wanted something I never had: to be close to my brother.’
    ‘Toby’s more like a brother to you than I am.’
    It was a secret smile and an unhappy one that Edward gave. His face almost hid it and he shook his head.
    ‘I wanted … what was it … I wanted memories, but when I searched for them in my head they weren’t there.