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Her tone was light, but he knew how hurt she must have been. ‘Whoa... Hold on a minute. That was their fault—they were the ones who were wrong, not you.’

‘I know. I get that. And to be fair they got that, too—they both did feel really bad about their behaviour. They accepted complete responsibility...gave me the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” spiel.’

‘They got that right,’ he pointed out and heard the anger in his voice. It was an anger aimed not at Gabby, but at the unknown Steve and Miles. Anger at how they must have made her feel. Gabby’s mother had made her feel not good enough, and they had added to that. ‘They were schmucks. They weren’t worth it and they weren’t worthy of you. You’re well rid of them.’

‘I tell myself that, but I do also accept that it’s possible that there isn’t a Mr Right out there for me. Both Steve and Miles seemed so right—good, normal, ordinary blokes.’ She sipped her champagne and then smiled. ‘Don’t get me wrong—I’m happy on my own. I love my job and I have security, a home, food on the table, consistency. And I have Gran—which is amazing, given she’s ninety. I’m lucky and I know that.’

Yet once her grandmother passed on, and in the scheme of things that could happen sooner rather than later, Gabby would be alone. No wonder she wanted a family, and had wanted her relationships with Steve and Miles to work out too much.

Without thought, Zander shifted a little closer to her and she rested her head on his shoulder.

‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘Enough about me. Let’s talk about you.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘What were you like as a child? What did you want to be when you grew up?’

‘That’s easy. I wanted to be a success. Simple as that. I didn’t care how I did it or what I did—I wanted success.’

She frowned. ‘So you were always ambitious? It’s funny—I don’t remember that about you at school.’

‘Sixth form was a strange time for me.’

It was the time when he’d just started seeing Claudia. He had been unable to read, but had been incredibly popular—a success on the sporting field, a cool kid, a rebel who had hardly any qualifications but seemingly didn’t care. A kid on the path to success of the wrong type. Then had come the dyslexia diagnosis—a turning point and a time when everything had changed for him. A vista of possibilities had opened up, and his determination and drive had been focused around conquering the written word.

His relationship with Claudia had deepened at a time when his ambition had been muted, and with hindsight he could see that perhaps it meant Claudia hadn’t known the real Zander. And perhaps he hadn’t known the real Claudia—he had been grateful she had gone out with him, someone ‘stupid’, but in reality she had been happy to go out with someone cool. But that didn’t answer Gabby’s question.

‘I was always determined to succeed. I think because my sisters had set the bar so high and I hated being the stupid one. I was always intent on equalling them.’

Her forehead creased in thought and then she sighed. ‘Yet you gave up that dream for Claudia because you loved her. You were happy to accept that her dreams were different. That is how relationships work—two people willing to compromise. You obviously understood the maintenance manual. That’s why you truly don’t need to feel guilt because you achieved success after her death.’

The words hit him like individual pellets and he had to force himself not to wince with each blow. Yet she sensed something; it clearly hadn’t been possible to keep the tension from his body.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reminded you.’ Her voice was small, sounding suddenly almost defeated. ‘Of what you’ve lost.’

Jeez. Each word poured salt into the wound, and for a moment he hesitated, wondered if he could admit the truth, air his guilt and the baseness of his soul to her. But that wasn’t the issue. Sharing his flaws meant a betrayal of Claudia. It would humiliate her memory.

‘You haven’t.’

How to explain that he couldn’t talk about Claudia? Not without conjuring up all his guilt and sadness...not without confessing that in fact he’d had no idea at all about relationship maintenance or compromise. That in fact his love hadn’t survived marriage, living together, a real relationship.

He could see compassion in Gabby’s eyes, along with a frisson of sadness, and then she shifted, moved in and kissed him softly on the lips. Her sympathy was so wrong he moved away. Then he saw hurt in her eyes and wished it were possible to kick himself round the whole of Sintra.

‘Gabby...?’

‘It’s fine. Really.’

It wasn’t, but he didn’t have a clue how to make it better. Whatever he said would make it worse, because he couldn’t tell her the truth.

‘What did you want to be when you grew up?’ As a question it was abrupt, gauche, stupid, but it was all he could come up with. ‘Did you always want to be a librarian?’

For a moment he thought she wouldn’t answer, then she shrugged, accepted the conversational gambit. ‘I wanted to be safe. I still do. You want success—I want security. As a child I don’t think I much cared how I got it, but as I grew older I did realise I had a choice. My priority was and is a regular income. Though I did once toy with the idea of being a writer.’ She said it as though the idea was a crazy one.

‘What did you want to write?’

‘Happy stories,’ she said without hesitation. ‘But also stories that make you think. For kids. Books were an incredible solace for me, growing up—they allowed me to escape from a difficult world into a fantasy one. I used to imagine the pages literally swallowing me up. And I was glad of it. I’m sorry that you didn’t have that.’

He shrugged. ‘Some people say you can’t miss what you never had, but I think what’s worse is desperately wanting something you can’t have. I used to think I’d wish away my soul if I could just decipher the meaningless jumble of shapes that everyone else could read.’