13

      Louis grew up in Baton Rouge, the son of an Anglican vicar and a classics professor at Louisiana State University. His parents sent him to England for his degree, because it was something they had both always wanted to do themselves, and because he asked, and they could just about afford it. He and Fanny were both enrolled on the same course and have been friends since the first week of their first term together. Louis is happy in England (he tends to be happy wherever he finds himself), and except for the occasional holiday, he hasn’t quite got around to going home since.

      He spent a couple of years after university driving removal vans. Then he went to art school. He worked briefly as a children’s illustrator. He trained as a TEFL teacher and for a year or two made a fortune giving private English lessons to Japanese bankers. He worked as a park attendant. He took a course in cabinet-making.

      For the past year Louis has been working as a freelance news photographer which, with the occasional boost from painting and decorating jobs, more or less pays his way. He enjoys the work: it allows him to travel, and to chat to people (which he loves) and he’s actually a pretty good photographer, too. But Louis isn’t somebody who lays much weight on his ‘career’, nor has he ever been. In fact he’s always found other people’s career obsessions very comical.

      And yet, to his own dismay, he finds himself more than a little undermined by Fanny’s recent stride towards adulthood and respectability. He feels as though he’s dragging behind. After all, he has two degrees, one in English, another from the Camberwell School of Art, and almost nothing to show for either of them: a rented flat in horrible Hackney, a part-time job, a motorbike with two helmets, an overdrawn bank account and a credit card that’s just hit its limit.

      When, the day after the limbo cotillion, Louis had ambled into the Fiddleford village post office to ask, on a whim, about local housing, Mrs Hooper had recognised him at once. Mrs Hooper (who was feeling a little lousy that Saturday morning) told Louis she was aware of only three places which were available in the area: one, a cottage on the road to Lamsbury, close to the famous hat maker’s, large and newly refurbished, and likely to be expensive. The other two, she said with a smirk, Louis would probably already be familiar with. Numbers 1 and 3 Old Alms Cottages, she explained, on either side of Miss Fanny Flynn, had been empty for years and would certainly be going cheap. They, like number 2, belonged to Mr and Mrs Guppy.

      ‘Ah…’ Louis smiled with his usual deprecating charm. ‘After last night I guess that might prove something of a problem.’ To which Mrs Hooper had thrown back her aching head and cackled.

      ‘Believe you me,’ she said, ‘nothing’s a problem for Ian Guppy, except missing out on the chance to make money. You’ll have no trouble with Ian! Just ring him up and tell him you want to take one of his cottages. No need to mention Miss Flynn; he’ll realise soon enough…But hang on a moment, I’ve got his number somewhere.’

      ‘By the way, ma’am,’ Louis said, as she disappeared to rummage beneath the counter.

      Super manners! thought Mrs Hooper. Goes to show not ALL Americans are bad.

      ‘Would you mind very much—To be frank with you, I’ve only started thinking about this, so please, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d be obliged if you don’t say anything to Fanny.’

      ‘I shan’t breathe a word to anyone,’ she swore, as she always did when people were delightful enough to entrust her with their secrets. ‘Don’t you worry!’ And to Mrs Hooper’s credit, it should be said that though she told Kitty Mozely, who told Geraldine Adams, and though she did mention it to Mr Guppy, and though she couldn’t resist dropping a clue to Mrs Haywood the glass-eyed secretary when she came in to buy her weekly Lotto, and though she implied as much to Messy McShane, and though she vaguely touched on the subject to young Colin and Chloe when they came delivering the eggs, and though she sort of hinted at it to the General, Mrs Hooper did not breathe a word to Fanny. And nor, of course, since the gossip was directly related to her, did anyone else…

      Which is a shame because it would have cheered her up.

      ‘Louis isn’t here now,’ Robert White is murmuring, burrowing his soft pink lips into her hair, holding tight to that telephone receiver. ‘Louis isn’t here. I’m here. Robert’s here…’ And as he pushes her backwards towards the floor, she protests. She struggles, but her movements are restricted by her chair and desk; his wet mouth is covering her mouth, his wispy beard is soaking up her tears, and he has both arms around her.

      Silence while Fanny tries to find some angle, beneath his bony limbs and wet, determined lips, to communicate more clearly her displeasure. She finds no angle. Can hardly breathe, in fact. Robert, more or less oblivious, moans in gentle pleasure. And both of Fanny’s telephones strike up at once; the one on her desk, the land line, is Geraldine Adams, returning Fanny’s returned call, and still trying to make that reading-with-the-kids appointment. The other one, her mobile, which has just been knocked to the floor and out of reach, is Louis.

      Stepping out into the Canary Wharf sunshine, fresh from a surprisingly successful meeting with his picture editor, Louis holds his telephone to his ear and waits impatiently for Fanny to pick up. She has only just called him according to his own mobile, so she must be there…

      This morning he telephoned Ian Guppy, who, after extracting an unfeasibly large deposit, agreed to leave keys to both Alms Cottages at the Fiddleford Arms, allowing Louis to choose between them in his own time. So he has a place to live. He has the promise of plenty of work from his editor. He envisages making this one call – just to be sure she’s still speaking to him. And then sometime afterwards, sometime very soon now, tipping up outside the school with keys to the neighbouring Alms Cottage in one hand and all his worldly goods in the other, and surprising her. They would have the whole summer together.

      Because he’s been unable to get