With the wisdom of hindsight, I now believe that was the morning that saw a definite shift in Louisa. Oddly enough, I recall the weather quite distinctly: overcast, leaden skies glowering with the threat of rain, while cold, damp air roared in ferociously from the north, buffeting the trees and turning the side streets into deserted wind tunnels. For so long the only notice I had taken of the elements had been an occasional quick glance upwards, determining simply whether it was necessary to don a Mac. But I now exist in a different world, one where such detail matters; the colour of the sky, the speed of the clouds, the warning inherent in the hues of the sunset; everything must be breathlessly observed and commented upon, as if Louisa had actually painted the heavens herself and was presenting her work for my approval.

As dawn broke on that dreary autumnal morning, even she could not find anything inspiring about the drab scenes beyond the windows and, finding nothing positive to say, she'd merely sighed and flopped absently into her chair. I observed her of course but I said nothing; I had the strangest sense that, ethereal as she was, I might be somehow breaking a spell. There was always something so delicate about her so early in the day; she seemed pliant and soft, her air slightly dazed and her mind apparently unable to focus. But, even as dreamy and distracted as she was in those moments, she still lit up the room like a second sun. There was nothing else for it however, the time had come, the report of her father must be raised, despite my fear that it would render her as somber and cinereal as the clouds above us.

When my aunt had conveyed to me the news of Terry Glasson's impending release, I was almost swamped by a deluge of reactions; initially, the most intense of them was resentment, followed rapidly by an inexplicable fear. That it fell to me to be the bearer of such a sensitive update was rather bloody aggravating; not only because I was I aware of how potentially fraught the situation was but, once again, I'd been left to clear up a mess that was not of my making. It ate away at me too, like a necrotising fasciitis; the unfairness of it all, the way the historic misdeeds of others continued to impact upon Louisa's life. And, as I anticipated her reaction, I realised that the nagging fear that dogged me stemmed from an awareness that, when it came to dealing with emotions, it was almost inevitable that I'd fail her.

For that reason, from the minute I was awake, her father's imminent parole had been uppermost in my mind. I'd waited with bated breath for an opportunity to apprise her of the situation but none seemed to present itself. All that time, I'd sat, upright and rooted to the spot, observing her closely, so much so that I can to this very day bring every detail to mind. It still pains me now to recall how she had emerged from her sleep so effortlessly irresistible; stretching like a self-satisfied cat in the hot midday sun, rolling over to face me, her somnolent smile captivating me as usual, trapping the portentous words in my hopelessly smitten throat.

"Hello." She'd said, gazing at me serenely through heavy-lidded eyes, her voice soft and low and achingly suggestive

"Hello." I'd replied, staring back at her helplessly as she slid toward me, my pulse climbing alarmingly as she'd eased her body over mine; beautiful, lithe and fantastical, a sleek, sultry creature slipping effortlessly into my arms.

I was barely conscious of anything else as she ran her hand through my hair, her mouth light and teasing, her body so warm and firm against mine. Like a leaf in a river, swept along involuntarily to my fate, I'd felt mindless and weightless in the face of a current so compelling. As tempted as I was to abandon myself, from somewhere in the recesses of my mind I heard the voice of admonishment; a sense of proprietary that fought to gain a foothold. The voice of indomitability became louder and that resolute ascetic, the Martin Ellingham of old, miraculously and rather surprisingly re-emerged

"Umm, aren't we cutting it a bit fine?" I'd muttered, swallowing hard as she grinned down at me, lifting my chin in a desperate act of defiance, as if assuming a sense of decorum might do me any good whatsoever when she was in this sort of mood.

"I've got five minutes before it's actually time to get up." She'd informed me casually, glancing across at the clock, and smiling at me impishly, her eyes shining so brilliantly, the delicacy of her touch inversely proportional to the intensity of my helpless response.

But, even gazing up at her, floundering in regret and and an ocean of discomfort, I knew what I must do. Before the weakness of my flesh bested my determination to do the honourable thing, I muttered a feeble and implausible excuse. Call it guilt, call it caution, call it self-denial for the noblest of causes but I had to interrupt her. Clumsily, I had rolled us both sideways before clambering briskly and inelegantly out of the bed, studiously avoiding her incredulous stare as I charged around impatiently, in a desperate search for some clothing.

"I'll make breakfast." I'd muttered over my shoulder as I fled the room, a chicken-hearted poltroon leaving her open-mouthed and protesting behind me.

By the time she wandered into the kitchen, minutes later, her confusion had turned into caution and, as I observed somewhat painfully, not only was she wary but she seemed also vaguely wounded. I, too, was hesitant, having had time enough to foresee the potential for volatility in the discussion to come. I'd spent some time trying to think how best I might present the information to her, searching for a way that did not leave me like a novice vulcanologist, charged with supervising rumbling Vesuvius. In the end, when my mouth finally regained it's capability to form sounds, I'd invited her, gently but somewhat hoarsely, to take a seat.

My preference when delivering bad news has always been a tone of calm assertiveness, conveying details with absolute frankness and clarity. Professionally, through necessity, I had become more adept, due largely to a stinging rebuke I'd received early in my career from a senior oncologist, one that still to this day rings in my ears like the bells of Big Ben. At the time, as a house surgeon on rotation, we received very little in the way of training, yet we were expected to deliver bad news all too frequently. In the busy corridor he had taken me aside and asked me to rehearse; to run through what I was about to say to a man in whom we'd just discovered multiple liver metastases.

"For god's sake Ellingham, you bloodless, unfeeling lump of ice!" He'd gasped, staring at me open mouthed in horror. "Show some sensitivity, man!"

It appeared that, even by then I had earned a reputation; reptilian-hearted, blunt, and without an ounce of softness. Bernard Newton had challenged me repeatedly too, hands thrust into his pockets, shaking his head at me in apparent despair as he walked away, as if I were the remains of an unsurvivable car crash. Yet I'd always considered stoicism as something to aspire to, being phlegmatic and emotionless as valuable traits worth working hard to attain and, even if I had wanted to change myself, it seemed an impossible task, my character appeared utterly carved into stone. The fact of the matter is, I speak to patients in the manner in which I would wish to be spoken; clearly, succinctly and without flannel. But I have never previously been in love, nor found myself bearing bad news to someone I care for as deeply as I do Louisa. Observing her then, her pale complexion, her narrowed eyes and her unhappy pout, I was torn. As much as I wanted to protect her at all costs, in the end there was no way to sugarcoat the truth.

Sitting across from me, clad in her delicate silk robe, with her hair still damp and clinging to the perfect skin of her neck, the conversation was over in a matter of minutes. Yet the news of her father disturbed her to such an extent that, for some time afterwards, the brilliance of her lustre was demonstrably dulled, as her sparkling effervescence ebbed grievously away. Witnessing her distress, noticing how she shrank into silence before me was nothing less than gut-wrenching and I had never detested my own impassive incompetence more than I did at that moment.

"I, umm, I spoke to Joan yesterday." I'd started out, hesitantly, placing the steaming porridge in front of her, drizzled generously with honey.

She'd narrowed her eyes at my concession, her suspicions immediately raised by what she recognised as an obviously meaningful gesture.

"Oh…right." She had replied slowly, with what I suspected was forced brightness. "And how was she? What did she say?"

"Ahh…she's fit and well, apparently. A bit…umm…cross with me, I think…as usual. I suspect it, umm, it wasn't helped by having to disappoint her of course…about the, umm…the…the…"

"Your birthday visit." She'd interrupted, gazing up at me from under her eyelashes, flashing a brief smile of commiseration, so sweetly hesitant in a way that made my abdomen spasm quite dramatically.

"Mm." I'd replied, my throat rendered frustratingly dry and uncooperative. "Milk?"

She'd picked up her spoon and nodded at me, watching patiently as I emptied the little porcelain jug carefully over the contents of her bowl. The room seemed suddenly and extraordinarily quiet, and still too, as if my ministrations had some sort of greater religious significance; ritualistic and reverent, priestly and pious; the solicitous actions of a devoted ecclesiast.

"Thank you." She'd said, and I'd pushed the container of berries toward her, encouraging her to partake generously.

The look on her face was enough to trigger it, the shy gratitude expressed in her brief smile unleashed within me the familiar debilitating phenomenon. I can best describe it as a rapid-onset reaction to a sensory blizzard, one I'd experienced since I was a small child: occasional, but ferociously intense moments of hyper-stimulation, where my mind responds by simply going blank. I can only liken it to a temporary emotional paralysis, freezing cognitively when the situation is beyond my comprehension. When my logical mind steps in, as it always does, I become a sermonising pedagogue intent on the delivery of a robotic series of tenuously related facts. As out of my depth as I feel, instead of gently reassuring her in the way even I understood she'd need, I found myself struck dumb by a cyclonic vacuum of thought, and stumbling inelegantly into a half-hearted nutritional lecture.

"Berries such as these are an excellent source of antioxidants…phylloquinone, and, ahh, ascorbic acid." I heard myself mutter, in the most pompous and inappropriate fashion. "And manganese too…yet another benefit you might not be aware of but, ahh, nevertheless nutritionally important…not least for breeding age females …because studies in animals have indicated that manganese deficiency can cause….ahh…spinal curvatures in offspring and…umm…a shortening and thickening of the limbs…"

I tailed off dismally, my words hanging dry and desiccated in the air, giving way to awkward silence. Louisa, however, neither responded nor pulled any sort of disapproving face at me, appearing still completely distracted, simply stirring her porridge dispiritedly. I realised, by some small mercy, she hadn't been listening to me at all.

"You know, Martin, perhaps we could schedule a visit to see her?" She said after a moment, her tone thoughtful and calm. "At some point, I mean, and I'd like that, and I know Joan would. There's no doubt she'd really love to see you again at the farm….and it would do her good to have someone to spoil, you know, and, I don't know, maybe a visit from both of us might help her…p'raps she might see things a bit better from our point of view?"

I'd shrugged, unconvinced by her suggestion. My conversation with my aunt had scarcely filled me with any degree of optimism, any hope that she might change her opinion of my relationship with Louisa. She seemed to reject the possibility in much the same way as she responded when I tried to convince her to look after her health, or get help on the farm. And, now, I fear all mention of her serves as merely an untimely distraction, a detour away from the knowledge that foments deep within me like a festering furuncle edging close to eruption.

"Louisa, there's something else..." I'd interrupted, picking up my spoon and putting it down again, glancing at her nervously, feeling as wooden and out of my depth as the time we first met. "And, since you have made no mention of it, umm…I can only assume that you are similarly unaware…"

She'd looked up at me cautiously, a brief flicker of apprehension causing her eyes to widen.

"Martin, what is it?" She asked with a sharpness, and at a volume, which revealed her alarm.

"Well, it seems…." I'd replied carefully, my well rehearsed sentiments deserting me as her eyes were riveted upon me. "Or, perhaps I should say, rumour has it that, ahh, shortly….very shortly, Louisa, apparently, umm… your father will be released from prison."

Wordlessly, her lips had parted and she had stared at me, her shock evident, her dismay palpable and, once again, she was a wounded, wary teenager, guarded and mistrustful. I'd felt a sudden pointless surge of fury at this anonymous man, her painfully irresponsible biological father, and I'd cursed him inwardly, a man I'd never met, momentarily enraged that it should fall to me to break this news to her, just when things between us seemed so satisfactory. At least, I suppose, I'd been correct in my assumption that she was not already aware of his release, she hadn't been withholding it from me, though the realisation brought with it no reward. Rather, I was forced to watch as her usually irrepressible joy, and the simple delight she took in every day life, were siphoned from her all too abruptly, leaving her drained of all colour as if she had been summarily embalmed.

"When you say rumour?" She asked slowly, her eyes searching my face for answers I was unable to provide.

I'd shrugged awkwardly in response. "Joan seemed convinced…"

"Right…" She'd replied quietly, after a moment, inhaling deeply, and squeezing her eyes closed fleetingly, as if she fought to hold back tears. "So, as bloody usual, I'm the last to know…"

I'd found myself holding my breath, my face contracting into a frown, twisted by regret and reflected anguish, desperate to fracture the suffocating silence but equally aware that there are moments in life where taking one's time is an utter necessity. Bad news, difficult decisions, even uncomfortable surprises, they all call for careful contemplation before committing to a response but, as I watched her struggle to regain her composure, I realised grimly that not only had I seen this all before but, previously, I'd been equally as ineffectual in my response. In my own churlish, discomfited way, I had done as much back then as I was actually capable of; a callow youth charged with rendering assistance to a stroppy, stick-thin teenager, not least one who was virtually unknown to me.

Her spoon clattered against the side of her bowl as she reached up to push her fringe out of her eyes, a familiar gesture of despair, and, for a split second, I was back in that dismal cottage high on the hill, the condensation-soaked windows rattling in the stiff salt-laden breeze. She'd been so resolute then, so adamant in her refusal to be cowed by her circumstances; a mere slip of a thing who became strangely and unnervingly admirable, not only for her spirited rejection of ever being thought a victim, but equally for never even considering that life may have dealt her a losing card. Recalling her petulance, her flouncing, her irrepressibility, in many ways she couldn't be more different, but, in some things at least, she is manifestly unchanged.

"Can I get you anything?" I'd asked her, helplessly. "Umm…I could make you a hot chocolate?"

She'd glanced at me, suddenly ten years older and infinitely, unfathomably sadder. As I took it all in, the breath had been ripped from my lungs; a searing yet silent howl at my own futility and indecision.

"I can't believe it." She'd cried, pain and dismay dripping from every word she spoke. "How could he? How could he, Martin? Eight years and even then he couldn't even be bothered to tell me they're letting him out?"

I'm incapable of answering her. Lord knows, I have little experience of the strength of paternal bonds but I wonder darkly about what sort of man Terry Glasson must be. I can't imagine making the sort of decisions he did, especially knowing he was solely responsible for the care and well-being of an innocent and impressionable adolescent, aware undoubtedly that her mother has already permanently abandoned her. Did he expect anyone to believe that he had no other options open to him other than a life of crime? The shame he and Louisa's appalling mother must have inflicted upon their only child chokes me with a suffocating rage; their neglect, their utter dereliction of duty, absconding financially and emotionally just as she was at such a vulnerable, formative point in her life fills me with bile.

I found myself oddly contused, almost as if I could sense how her heart must ache, as if I could feel the rasp of each breath that catches within the confines of her constricted chest. Yet, all the time, I was acutely aware that there was nothing that could be done or said that could change the past and equally, nothing that I could do that might mitigate her obvious distress. I recall the shock of when that particularly painful realisation hit me, when no one came to collect me at the end of term and, after standing for hours in the Quad, I'd dragged my suitcase miserably back up to the empty dorm, fighting every step to hide my tears. Eventually, when the housemaster found me, and casually informed me that I would be remaining in school for the holidays, I'd stood cowed and accepting, even justifying my plight with a raft of excuses, rationalising my fate in defence of my parents.

"Louisa…" I said to her, as gently and softly as I was capable of, considering the resentment that surged through my veins. "Is there any chance your father might have wanted to tell you but simply did not know where to find you?"

"I'm not a kid, you don't have to make excuses for him."

"I'm not." I'd protested quietly. "It's just…"

"He's had years to track me down." She had interrupted snappishly, and I'd found myself staring at her in sadness, unsure of what I should now say or do, and stricken by the way her distress had caused her beautiful, expressive mouth to disappear; the soft, succulent curve of her lower lip giving way to a miserable, thin, unhappy slit.

"Yes." I'd agreed carefully. "All I'm suggesting is that perhaps…perhaps it might not be the deliberate snub it appears…"

She met my tentative explanation with silence, an empty unhappy interlude only punctuated by the insistent ticking of the clock, a sound that felt like a chorus of clucking disapproval, opined by a clutch of widowed aunts. Finding myself almost cognisant of how she felt, I realise now that the mistake I made was to assume her lack of response meant that her rage had somehow dissipated. Erroneously correlating her muteness with acquiescence, I'd taken a spoonful of porridge, glancing at her hopefully over the top of my hand.

"Louisa, umm, perhaps you should eat your breakfast before it gets cold…." I told her, now intent on helpful, practical advice, relieved that we may have shifted back within my realm of experience. "What time is your bus?"

If my intention was to settle her down, I can barely recall my reasoning, failed as it was and manifestly deficient. What I do remember was the intensity of her reaction however, fusing me to the chair with the force of it, the energy of it, immobilising me and rendering me speechless. It was as if I had a lit match beneath her and her response was to explode like an jet-powered incendiary; transformed before my eyes into a hissing, seething, scalded polecat, she leapt to her feet, snarling at me in fury and frustration, the culmination of a life peppered with brutal disappointments.

"I don't want any sodding breakfast!" She had cried out, her voice ragged and choked by tears, and I'd gaped after her in confusion and in horror, as every previous failure of judgement I'd ever had seemed suddenly to pale into insignificance.

I'd called after her helplessly as she charged down the hall; shrouded in a stormy squall of disconsolate bleakness, leaving me futile, fustian and insufficient in her wake. The porridge set like plaster of Paris in my mouth, and my oesophagus was as narrow as a straw but I persevered regardless, clinging to an excuse, a moment to clear my mind, helpless to imagine how on earth I could usefully respond. My own instincts, in respect to understanding others, are virtually useless because my preference, when upset or angry, is invariably to be alone. But, knowing her as I do, I suspected that Louisa's predilection for isolation was more about her primal instinct, invariably, to flee. Crestfallen, I'd taken one more tasteless and bitter spoonful before reaching for the napkin and dabbing carefully at my mouth, a small, almost ritualistic gesture that I hoped might buy me time.

I'd found her on the floor of the bedroom, slumped against the wall, her lip trembling, her eyes swimming in unshed tears. With her arms wrapped around her knees, god, had she looked so young and helpless, so vulnerable that I could barely think of a single syllable to say. Standing there, towering over her, I felt suddenly overbearing, and awkward, grimly unfeeling and horribly stern. For a moment I was my father, looming over his tiny, thin, terrified son; a punishing, judgemental, cold-hearted man who took pleasure in driving terror into the heart of a little boy. How I'd detested my father and how I hated the way he'd made me feel, so different from my Uncle Phil, a gentle, kind-hearted man who had a way of crouching down to talk to me so that our heads were level and he always gazed at me, peaceably, in the eye. I'd come to realise that I'd seldom ever done anything to deserve Christopher's incandescent rage, just as Louisa had done nothing to deserve the situation she now found herself in. Without thinking, I dropped to my haunches and squatted down beside her, willing her to look at me, willing her to speak.

"He's in for a bit of shock if he thinks I've got the slightest interest in seeing him…" She'd growled from beneath her fringe, as petulant as her fourteen year old self, and as dogged and strong-willed.

"Mm." I'd answered cautiously, lowering my weight onto my hands and easing myself gently down beside her.

"When I passed my O levels, Karen thought it might be a good idea to write to him." She'd said, her tone unusually bitter, as if she was disgusted with herself.

"Oh?"

"Yes, well, it shouldn't come as a surprise when I tell you that he never replied." She said, the anger in her voice giving way to a resigned sort of sadness, as if she was momentarily not herself, a demoralised and defeated shadow of everything I loved.

Disconcertingly, I seemed almost to understand how she felt; an uncommon sensation that was as puzzling as it was uncomfortable. I suppose it stemmed from the fact that in some ways our childhoods were similar, and that parental rejection takes many forms, eating away at us until we find a way to silence the qualms and hide the damage. I found myself instinctively reaching for her hand, sitting for a few minutes in companionable silence and listening, trying to put a name to the feelings that I was was experiencing.

"No." I answered, squeezing her fingers helplessly, wishing I could think of something profound to say, something that might help her find her way back to me, anything that might ignite that extraordinary spark within her.

"I suppose you always hope, don't you?" She said, glancing across at me, her eyes huge and sad. "However much you know you're going to be disappointed, you always hope that this time it might be different."

I swallowed hard and tried to think of a way to tell her that I really must disagree. I'd expunged hope from my mind from about the age of eleven, deciding that it was frankly a waste of energy, a cruel temptress that never delivered. I'd lain in the dorm and hoped so fervently that I might return to the farm only to realise with humiliation what a pointless, forlorn wish it had turned out be. So disappointing too when, as a child, so many things in life seemed to only become available 'when you are twelve'; tractor-driving for instance, using power tools, dissembling internal combustion engines, fiddling with complex electrical circuitry, and experiments with diesel and ammonium nitrate. I'd hoped for so many things up to that point but my banishment from Cornwall had brought an end to all that. And to hope itself too, I recall with unemotional coolness.

"Actually…I have little use for hope…" I tell her reluctantly, my mouth left dry and abraded by my admission. "It's..umm…it's never served me particularly well if I'm honest….".

She frowned at me, her brows knotting in pained perplexity, the semblance of a faint incredulous smile playing about her lips,still purple and bruised by the recent assault from her teeth.

"What?" She asked me. "Martin, are you being funny?"

"No." I reassured her. "It's simply that I know what I can and can't achieve and, as a result, I've trained myself not to be concerned with the unobtainable, or to concern myself with things I cannot alter. It's, umm…it's merely wishful thinking…at best naive …umm, and a pointless waste of energy if you ask me. More sensible just to get on with things. Attainable things."

"Oh." She said, as if she were taken aback, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and peering at me with a strange sort of intensity, as if she needed to sharpen her focus.

"I'm not criticising you..." I tell her firmly. "You were a child. Wishing for things is a normal part of juvenile cognitive development. Like a belief in Father Christmas…"

"I was sixteen Martin, not six…and, besides, I don't see how hoping your father writes back to you equates to a belief in fairy tales.."

"Only in as much as hope, for anything outside ones control, inevitably leads to disappointment."

She frowned, unwrapping her arm from around her shins and stretching her legs out, sliding her feet across the carpet, gazing at me thoughtfully.

"Are you saying that you've never hoped the weather's going to be nice, or that there might still be bread left in the shops at five o'clock….?" She asks with a perplexed deliberateness, one that shows a heartening return to her frequent incredulity at my opinions. "You don't ever walk home then, hoping the bloke you've just operated on survives?"

"No." I told her, gently but firmly. "What difference would it possibly make? I can't change anything about the first two situations, and in respect of the latter, the patient, I will have done everything in my power before they wheel him to recovery. Hope won't change his outcome."

"Right." She says, with a vague, disbelieving shake of her head.

"May I suggest that it's far more useful to check the weather forecast, or do ones shopping in ones lunch hour, especially when one is, apparently, so fond of bread…"

"It was just an example, Martin. I don't care about the bread." She'd replied impatiently, relinquishing her grip on my hand and clambering to her feet, clasping at her dressing gown self consciously as the belt detached and it fell open, somewhat revealingly.

As she glowered at me, I cleared my throat and looked away but not before I'd observed that the colour had returned to her face, just as her tears had evaporated. to my inordinate relief, it seemed that she was well on her way to regaining her composure.

"Are you alright?" I'd asked her carefully, just to make sure. "I mean, we can talk more tonight..umm…it's just that I really do have to go. I have a meeting at nine…"

"I'm fine" She'd replied with encouraging briskness. "Gotta busy day ahead myself and, as you pointed out, I have a bus to catch…"

Reassured, I'd climbed mercifully into the shower; standing beneath the thundering cascade, even briefly, had been restorative and refreshing and I emerged feeling that perhaps we had navigated another setback quite successfully. As I shaved, she darted in and out of the bathroom and, as usual, I found myself distracted, watching her in the mirror as she wandered past, clad only in her underwear, absentmindedly twisting her hair into a ponytail, hairpins gripped between her lips. As inconvenient as it sometimes was for us to share this bathroom, the benefits were obvious, and when she stood beside me, applying her lipstick with a few deft swipes, I could barely even remember what it had been like to live without her. Noticing how I stared, her self-conscious smile back at me was like a salve and, once again, it was as if she were momentarily lit from within.

As I fiddled with cufflinks, she had struggled with tights, before pulling on a skirt that made her legs look like they went on forever. I'd sighed when I'd noticed, a shuddering expression of disbelief; for the thousandth time, an incredulous realisation that, beyond anything I deserved, Louisa was still here. With me. And, suddenly, I had wanted to tell her, to admit to her that I had been guilty of a form of deception, patently lying by omission and, more accurately, by denial. Of course I had hoped. From the second I had laid eyes on her in that cramped little restaurant, it was all that had sustained me. Hope; a ridiculous improbability, an unfeasible yearning, a delusion even, that such a radiant and breathtaking young woman might ever find something worthy of love in me.

I knot my tie and wonder if it is the sort of sentiment that should be shared, or is it best left unrevealed? Would it cast me in an impossibly needy light? Or is it simply imprudent to reveal myself as diffident and potentially even as somehow weak. As we step forward simultaneously to retrieve our jackets, I stand back and allow her to go first. I want so much to be able to articulate to her how I feel. Even as I gaze at her now, as she slips into her little leather jacket and flashes me a rueful smile as our eyes meet, I feel almost overwhelmed by the love I have for her. Words, inevitably, fail to save me, abandoning me when I need them most, but I find myself rescued, by some sort of unidentifiable, intrinsic desire to wrap my arms around her and make her realise that at least she will always be safe and cared for if she decides to live her life with me. A sentence forms in my mind as I press my lips to the top of her head, relishing the sensation of her body against me, like a drowning man clings, and savours the feel of a life buoy.

"You are hope to me, Louisa." I think to myself, swallowing hard and forming the shape of the sounds, silently, with my tacky, uncooperative mouth. "You are my hope."

Tentatively, I raise my hand to her hair, stroking it gently, fortified and encouraged by the way she buries her head into my chest, the way her arms encircle my waist so tightly.

"I've been thinking…" I say cautiously, clearing my throat and moistening my lips as the magnitude of what I want to say starts to bloat and bulge, and balloon in my chest.

"Me too." She says breathlessly. "Knowing that I might just pump into him on the street one day, well, it just feels really odd…like I can't quite believe it…I mean, what would I say?"

"What, if we go to Portwenn?" I ask, momentarily confused.

"No, Martin, I mean here." She says firmly, leaning back and looking up at me with a sort of forced patience, as if I were a muddled, bewildered child. "Dad grew up in Battersea. It stands to reason that he'll come back here, he's got more ties to London than he ever had to Portwenn…"

I stare at her in astonishment. "But I thought he was Cornish. I mean, I assumed he was a fisherman."

She shook her head slowly, a discomfited, awkward grimace flashing across her face.

"He met mum at the Isle Of Wight Festival and followed her back to Cornwall. And then she got pregnant. I 'spose it was a miracle they stayed together as long as they did actually…."

"Are you sure?" I hear myself interrupt, my voice a horrified whine, as I struggle to breath, strangled by the alarm that seems to proliferate within me.

"Yep" She replies flatly, almost as if she is utterly accepting of his imminent intrusion into our lives. "He'll come back to London. His contacts are all here, wouldn't make sense for him to go anywhere else. And if he finds out I'm here too, living with you in a posh flat in Kensington, mark my words, I'm sorry Martin, I really am, but it won't be long before he turns up on the doorstep."