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long day.”

    It used to be that he would have a glass of cognac every night before bed, to help him off to sleep, until the time came when he found that even this small tipple left him groggy the following morning. But now, nearing the bottom of his third, he was looking forward to a fourth.
    The empty Pepper & Sons box lay on the table beside him and he held the rings in his hand. The jeweller who’d mended them had done a poor job. The director of the funeral parlour had been apologetic about having to cut them from Pippa’s finger and quite kindly offered to pay part of the repair cost, but he’d refused. And when he drove with them all the way back to Birmingham he found that Pepper & Sons was no longer in business. It had become a museum. The woman who ran the gift shop suggested he take them to a jeweller in the city centre. The address she gave him was that of a shabby storefront shop whose proprietor offered to buy both rings. When he wouldn’t sell, the man suggested that he at least replace the stone in the engagement ring, informinghim that the original was of deficient calibre. In the end he took them to the local jeweller in the village who did the job for him at half price.
    He laid the rings back in the box and poured himself another measure of cognac, which he carried across the room. Standing beside the settee he looked at the photograph of himself and Pippa. Before that afternoon it had been some time since he had taken notice of it. And staring at it now, he realized that he had forgotten how young Pippa once was. Most often when he thought about her, it was as she was near the end: her bones brittle from the osteoporosis, her heart congestive like her father’s and her mind ruined by the dementia that robbed him of her even before she died. In those last months, he remembered her walking the darkened house at night, unable to sleep, not recognizing him when he came to take her back to bed. A different Pippa from the one in the photograph, from the laughing girl who had to hold her hat on in the wind. He took a drink of cognac and held it in his mouth until it burned his tongue.

    He stood in the open doorway and watched her as she slept. The light from the hallway splashed across the floor. She had folded her clothes and laid them on the chair beside the window. In bed she lay with her head turned away from him, facing the wall. Through the duvet, which was pulled tight under her chin, he could see the shape of her breasts, rising and falling in the slow motion of slumber.
    He took a step forward and plunged the room into darkness. He listened to her breathing: measured, constant. When hestepped back, the light returned, illuminating her again. He remained a moment longer, watching her, then pulled the door closed.

    In the night he dreamed that she crept into his room and stood naked at the foot of his bed. She was lit by moonlight. When he pulled back the duvet she slipped into the bed beside him, pressed herself against his tired body. He took her breast in his mouth, tasted the warmth of her flesh, the distant saltiness of her skin. In his dream she did not speak, just a faint smile curling her lips. Then the brightness woke him and he felt spent. It was late, the morning sun already high.
    He stood before the mirror in his bedroom and dressed himself. As he buttoned his waistcoat, he found that another stitch had come loose. It would need to be mended before it could unravel further. After his walk, he decided: a cup of tea, the darning needle; maybe he would watch some television as he set about it.
    The faintest trace of cigarette smoke greeted him in the kitchen, but nothing else. No empty teacup; no saucer with fag-ends. The money was gone from the telephone table, but the number for the minicab company had been left behind.
    In the lounge he found his empty glass and the bottle of cognac where he had left it on the side table beside the Pepper & Sons box. He sat down and