'Are you sure you're all right to do this? Miranda?'

'What? Yes, quite sure. It'll be fun.'

My mind was elsewhere entirely. In bed with Nick the night before, all night. Sleeping at last, then waking in the hours before dawn, dazed with tiredness, and feeling for each other in the darkness. And in the morning he was still there, a stranger's face on the pillow. Miraculous. I blinked and smiled at Kerry. My lips were sore, my body tingled.

'There are four of them I've arranged to see,' she was saying, 'and I've worked out how to do it most efficiently. It'll only take an hour or so. Maybe less. You can't tell from the estate agents' details, can you?'

'I can take you out for lunch after, if you like.'

'That would be lovely. I said I'd meet Brendan. We can just call him and he'll join us wherever we decide to go. He wanted to come this morning, except he'd promised Dad to help him with moving all their furniture before the workmen arrive tomorrow morning and tear the house to bits. He couldn't do it this afternoon because we've got this man coming to look at my flat for the second time.'

'Let's see what time we're through with this,' I said, backpedalling. 'Maybe I'll just have to dash off anyway, come to think of it. I've got a loft extension waiting.'

'It's Sunday,' she protested. 'You work too hard.' Happiness had made her generous. She wanted everyone else to be happy too. 'You look tired.'

'Do I?' I reached up and touched my face gently, the way Nick had done. 'I'm fine, Kerry. Just a bit of a late night, that's all.'

We'd gone to see a film. It wasn't much good, but that didn't matter. We'd leaned into each other, his hand on my thigh, my head pressed against his shoulder. Every so often we'd turned our faces to each other and kissed, just lightly: a promise. He'd bought a tub of salty popcorn, but neither of us ate much of it. We'd both known it was tonight, and the film was just about waiting in the dark, emptying our minds of the other things. For me that meant trying to forget what Brendan had said to me the evening before. The way he'd leaned forwards and whispered it. Smiling and saying that thing. I mustn't think of it; I had to get it out of my mind, where it was buzzing like a fat, unclean fly. So I gazed at the images flickering across the screen, glanced at Nick. Every so often closed my eyes.

When we wandered into the foyer, it was dark outside. Nick lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. 'Where now?'

'My flat's nearer than yours,' I said.

We got a bus there and sat on the top, right at the front. I pressed my forehead against the window and felt the vibrations and looked at the people on the streets beneath me, walking with their heads bent against the gusts of wind. I felt nervous. Soon, I would be making love with this man who was sitting beside me now, not speaking, whom I'd only met twice. What then? Sometimes sex can feel casual and easy, but sometimes it seems momentous and full of problems; almost impossible. Two people with all their hopes and expectations and neuroses and desires, like two worlds colliding.

'This is our stop,' I said.

He stood up and then pulled me to my feet. His hand was warm and firm. He smiled down at me. 'All right?'

It was all right. Just fine. And then, after we'd made ourselves a sandwich out of one of those half-baked baguettes which I had in my cupboard, with goat's cheese and tomatoes, and drunk a glass of wine each, we went back into the bedroom and this time it was better than all right. It was lovely. Just thinking about it now, in Kerry's car, made me feel liquid with desire. Then we had a bath together, legs tangled up in the small tub, my foot pressed against the inside of his thigh, grinning like idiots at each other.

'What are you grinning at?'

'Mmm? Oh, nothing.'

'Here. This is the first one.' Kerry pulled up and squinted at the sheet of paper dubiously. 'It says it's a two-bedroom maisonette, retaining many period features.'

'Does it say it's next to a pub?'

'No, it doesn't.'

'Let's go and see, anyway.'

It's dangerous buying houses. You know before you set foot inside whether you like them. It's almost like a relationship, when they say it's the first few seconds that count, that instant, pre-rational impression. You have to fall in love with the house you buy. Everything else – whether the roof's sound, the plumbing good, the rooms numerous enough – is almost irrelevant at the start. You can knock down walls and install a damp-proof course, but you can't make yourself fall in love. I was here as the expert; as the voice of caution.

Kerry knocked and the door flew open as if the woman had been standing with her eye pressed to the spyhole, looking for our approach.

'Hello, come in, mind the step, shall I show you round or do you want to do it yourself, except there are a few details that you might miss, here, come in here first, this is the living room, sorry about the mess…' She was large and breathless and spoke in a headlong rush, words spilling over each other. She careered us from room to tidied room, over frantically patterned carpets. The walls were covered with plates they'd collected, from Venice, Amsterdam, Scarborough, Cardiff, Stockholm, and for some reason the sight of them made me feel sorry for her. She pulled open doors with a flourish, showed us the airing cupboard and the new boiler, the second toilet that was crammed into a space that had been carved out of the kitchen, the dimmer switches in the tiny master bedroom, and the spare bedroom that looked more like a broom cupboard and had clearly been built by cowboys. I pushed the wall surreptitiously and saw it shake. Kerry made polite murmurs and looked around her with bright eyes that transformed everything into her beatific future. She was probably already putting a cot in the spare bedroom.

'Does the pub bother you?' I asked the woman.

'The pub?' She acted surprised, wrinkled her brow. 'Oh, that. No. You hardly hear it. Maybe on a Saturday night…'

As if on cue, the first burst of music thumped through the wall, the bass notes shaking in the air. She flushed, but then carried on talking as if she hadn't heard anything. I glanced at my watch: it was eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning. We did the rest of the tour anyway, making vaguely enthusiastic remarks about the view from the bathroom window, the wedge-shaped garden. The more you don't like a place, the more you have to pretend you do. But I don't think the woman was fooled.

'What do you think?' asked Kerry as we left. 'If we

'Definitely not. Not for half the price.'

'It's falling down,' I said as we left the second house.

'But…'

'That's why it's so cheap. That's why the sale fell through. You might be able to afford to buy it, but you'd have to spend the same again. I'm not even sure you could get it insured.'

'It's such a nice house.'

'It's a wreck. She's got someone in to plaster and paint over the worst bits in the hall, but there's damp everywhere, probably subsidence. You'd need a structural engineer to check it over. The window frames are rotting. The wiring is primeval. Do you have the capital to do it up?'

'Maybe when Bren, you know, finds a job…'

'Is he looking?'

'Oh, yes. And thinking hard about what he really thinks is right for him. He says it's a chance to begin again and make the life he really wants for himself.' She blushed. 'For us,' she added.

'In the meantime, he's got nowhere to sell, and it's just what you get from your flat and your income.'

'Mum and Dad have been very generous.'

'Have they?' I tried to suppress the stab of resentment I felt when I heard that. 'No more than you deserve. But don't blow it on that house.'