I’ve arranged everything and I’m only asking for two whole days to myself. Is that too unreasonable? That I should do what I want, by myself, just for once?’ She was almost shouting down the phone.

Dear me, you are getting yourself in a state. Well, go ahead and ask him then. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Sarah slammed the phone down with a bang. Her mother never saw her as anything but a child, needing constant guidance and supervision. Susie had undoubtedly done the right thing, taking off for Africa as soon as the wedding ring was firmly in place, leaving her unfortunate sister to shoulder the responsibility of a restless, feckless widow who couldn’t believe that her children had grown up. She flounced off into the kitchen to prepare dinner, longing for Douglas to come home so that she could tell him about it.

Douglas was late that night. The children were in bed and the garden was in twilight before she heard his step in the hall. A stocky man, not very tall, with a square, firm face and dark hair tinged with grey. He wore glasses and he looked hot and cross.

‘I have been in that train for over an hour,’ he fumed, flinging his briefcase into a corner. Sarah retrieved it and set it on a chair.

‘Come into the garden, darling. I’ve made some cocktails—I thought you might be a bit frazzled. Or would you like to pop up and change: you look all sticky.’

‘I think I’ll change. Honestly, you would think it would be possible to run a train on time occasionally, but it’s never the same two days’ running. It’s the snow, or the rain; today I suppose the lines have melted or something and I shall never know why everyone always commits suicide on the District Line—’

Sarah followed behind, letting him fume and bluster while she picked up socks and handed clean ones, took away a dirty shirt and found one newly ironed on its hanger. Gradually he calmed down until at last, when they were seated on the terrace in the dusk, he smiled. The heavy contours of his face lightened and a touch of humour sparked in his eyes.

‘Am I being a pain?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Yes, but I don’t mind. Have you had a hard day?’

‘The very worst. The latest estimate for that rig’s in. It’s way over budget and no-one seems to know why. Stock market’s going up and down like a yo-yo and we’ve a dealer in Hamburg having a fit because he’s got his decimal point wrong and thinks he’s lost half a million. God, I can do without days like today.’

Sarah grinned and leaned forward to pour her husband a drink. It seemed to her that the oil market lurched from one crisis to another, with no constant except the large salary cheques that continued to come their way. She popped a cherry in Douglas’s glass and leaned back in her chair, wondering if this was the moment to tell him her plan. She had dressed with care, a calf-length full linen skirt and a blouse of pale blue silk with a cowl neck. Soft, feminine clothes that Douglas would like.

‘Harry Rogers’ wife came in today,’ he said suddenly.

‘Isn’t she the one with the very exclusive dress shop?’

‘Yes, that’s her. I don’t know how he puts up with it. One of the most overpowering women I have ever met, and she can hardly ever be home. They’ve two children, you know, both at boarding school. They’d have to be, she’s no time for them, or for Harry if you ask me.