When Aidan had put the photographs back in his pocket, he waited a few moments in silence. Then he came closer to where I stood by the table. “Clara, are you crying?”

“No, of course not.”

I looked up at him. The muscles of his face and neck had tensed, as if he were bracing himself for something. But his eyes were full of tenderness. Hoping he would not see how affected I was, I said, “You told me once that my life has changed too much for me to go back to my Welsh valley and marry a farmer. And it has.”

Without speaking, he took me in his arms and held me to his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head. We stayed like that for a long time. Then I drew back and lifted my face, and looked into his. The very first time I had seen him, on the set of the film, I had thought how actorish his face was – sharp-angled, with the intense look so necessary for the screen. And sitting beside me when I had collapsed on his stairs, he had looked at me as if every memory, every thought, the essence of his being was concentrated in that moment. He was careless, it was true, but his carelessness did not carry irresponsibility with it. He knew what was morally right and did it.

He put his cheek on mine. “Clara … please answer me one question,” he began, but I put my finger on his lip.

“Shh. I know what you want to ask, and there is no need. I am where I wish to be. I will never go anywhere else unless you want me to.”

He kissed me, and I kissed him. It was not like those kisses with David in hotels and taxis, which had been frenzied, guilty, a means to an end. It was like being swept up and kept aloft by a current of feeling. We kissed and kissed. Flies landed on the strawberries and pastries, but we were too preoccupied to brush them away. I could not predict what would happen when David saw the pictures. But today, Aidan and I were safe in our little room, behind the shutters while the sun beat down outside, and the little fountain played in the courtyard, and the world was at peace.