We drove without speaking. The radio played softly in the background, the sort of middle-aged, easy listening type station that Matt loved and I liked to tease him about. He had a habit of singing a line of a song very loudly, just a random line, not the chorus or anything, and not from a song that was playing on the radio or stereo, but from one that was obviously running itself in his head. It always made me jump, and then laugh, and he would look over at me in surprise. He didn’t realise he was doing it but something today was obviously stopping him as he was silent, and so was I.

I looked out of the window, watching the countryside scroll by. I thought of all the times I’d left Caernaven before, by foot, by car, by train. By ambulance.

I drew in a deep shaky breath.

“Do you remember our first meeting?” I asked, suddenly.

Matt gave me a quick, quizzical look. “Remember it? Why wouldn’t I remember it? Of course I do.”

We drove on for a moment without speaking.

“Why?” he said.

“Why what?”

“Maudie, come on. Why are you asking me that question?”

“I don’t know.” I turned my face to the window, to the banks of the motorway rolling past. “I was thinking about the past.”

“Always a dangerous thing.” He said it in a joking voice but there was an awkward undercurrent. He was right, I thought. The past can be dangerous. Or did he just mean that thinking about it was the dangerous thing? I had a sudden, ferocious urge for a drink.

“Could we stop for lunch? For a break?”

Matt shrugged. “Don’t see why not. Probably a good idea.”

“Somewhere nice. Not some dismal little service station.”

As Matt found the motorway exit and began the search for the somewhere nice I’d stipulated, I thought about Angus once more. It was usual for me, when visiting Caernaven, to take the train up. Partly it was to avoid the fag of a drive, but partly it was so I could bolster myself up on the journey with a few drinks. The trick was to pace oneself; I had to arrive fully armoured but comprehensible.

Angus normally met me at the station. Before I walked out of the entrance hall to the tiny car park beyond, I would always pause for a minute to check that the appropriate feelings were in place; mild irritation, the fretful contemplation of two days of idleness and boredom. Did other people get the same heart-sinking sensation when they went back home or was it just me? The wine I’d have drunk on the journey would numb me. There was no fear, only the vaguest tremor of anxiety that was dispelled with a shake of my head.

“How about this?” said Matt.

I came back to the present with a jerk, blinking. He was indicating a pub up ahead. It served alcohol, it was open. I tried to sound suitably grateful.

“Looks fine to me.”

When we were inside and Matt was at the bar, giving our order, I thought again of our first meeting. It had been at Caernaven, at a dinner party held by Angus. I’d come up from London, a long overdue visit; I’d stayed away deliberately, not wanting to return unless I was sure of myself. As I’d unpacked my suitcase in the bedroom, I’d looked out of the window at the familiar view – the fields and hedges spreading in a patchwork of gold and green and, far beyond, the smoky blue bulk of the mountains, the sky heaped with masses of white cloud above their peaks. Angus had sprung the dinner party on me, I remembered, and I hadn’t packed anything suitable to wear. I’d told him so at the first opportunity.

“Angus, I’ve got to go into Hellesford and get something to wear for tonight, I haven’t got anything suitable.”

He looked irritated. “Christ, Maudie, haven’t you brought anything? Why not?”

I stammered a little. “Because I – I didn’t realise–”

“You haven’t got time to go now, I need you here for six. Have you checked the spare rooms?”

“No–”

“There’s a few dresses of your mother’s still hanging about. Wear one of those.”

I felt a slight shock, as I always did when he mentioned her. She was always there but not there; not exactly censored, but rarely openly spoken of. I thought of arguing the point but gave up.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll have a look.”

Once, I’d looked at these dresses all the time. As a small child I used to climb into the wardrobe and pull the door shut and sit there, wound about with my mother’s old clothes. I’d like to have said that they smelt of her, but of course they didn’t; they smelt of washing powder and fabric softener, not of human skin. As the years went by they smelt less pleasant, stale air beginning to permeate their fibres, until one day I closed the door of the wardrobe for the last time and left childish things behind.

There were three spare rooms on the first floor. In the second room, a bank of wardrobes stood against one wall. I flicked through the hangers, each garment wrapped in its own shroud of plastic. I found a plain black dress that looked as if it would fit. It would have to be washed and dried before I could wear it – perhaps Mrs. Green would see to it. I held it against myself for a moment, imagining my mother wearing it, sometime in the late sixties. I’d seen photos, although never of her in this actual dress. She had blonde hair like mine... I put a hand up to my head, running a strand through my fingers. I was eleven months old when she died in a car crash. I was in the car with her, but I’d escaped almost unhurt. Flying glass had cut open my face, the blood sheeting down the side of my neck like a red scarf. Otherwise, there hadn’t been another scratch on me. Like a miracle, Angus had once said to me, in an unusually unguarded moment. But I sometimes wondered whether some part of me had been hurt, as well as my face; some hidden, inner part of me. I thought that every time I saw the scar in the mirror. I shook my head. I’m better now, I told myself firmly, and marched to the door of the room.

“Penny for them?”

“What?” I said, startled. Matt was holding a glass of wine in front of my face. I tried not to grab for it.

“You were miles away.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Christ, darling, you don’t have to apologise. I can imagine what you’re thinking about.”

“Actually, I’m not,” I said. “I was thinking about meeting you for the first time.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s a happy memory for a change.” He paused, then grinned. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

“I even remember what you were wearing.”

“Oh yes?”

“Some lovely old dress of your mother’s. Very sexy you looked in it, too.”

I snorted. “You were wearing that bloody awful old jacket. As usual. You didn’t look sexy in it at all.”

“That must have been why I asked you on a date, and not the other way round.”

“I said yes, though.”

“Eventually.”

We regarded each other over the table, and smiled.

I hadn’t actually spoken to Matt that first night until after dinner, when everyone was out on the terrace. It was a beautiful evening, the air soft and scented with the heavy, drowsy smells of summer. Insects flickered about the outside lamps and midges came to bite us, until I went to light the citronella candles that were dotted about on the walls of the terrace. Matt saw me casting about for matches and offered me his lighter, a beautiful thing of old, polished brass, a faint design of vine leaves on its surface worn almost smooth by years of wear. He’d already lit a cigarette; I watched him smoke it slowly and thoughtfully, his eyes closing slightly on every intake of breath. I handed him back the lighter and he took it from me, his fingers brushing mine.

“I’m so pleased to meet you, Maudie,” he said, once more. “Angus talks about you a lot.”

“He does?” Momentarily, I was wrong footed. What had he been saying about me? Had he mentioned my – my illness? You’ve got to think of it as an illness, Maudie, I heard Margaret say in the confines of my head. You have to get over an illness. You have to convalesce.