She could see Ralph’s soft bulk in the dressing-table mirror. He was very quiet, his heavy shoulders resting against the bedhead. She tried to picture the young man who had used to sit smiling and mischievous as she got ready for bed. Time had changed them both. The woman in the glass had a dry look to her skin, fragile like leaves at the end of autumn. Ralph’s features had grown thicker and stronger, the bushy eyebrows, the long nose almost hooked. And she loved him more than ever. A tightness in her throat for Nicky that he should be so alone. How could Sarah do that to him? But then, when he’d first brought Sarah home, she’d already had a niggling worry that it might not work. Sarah had a way of holding back that had left Alice a little hurt and puzzled; she recalled her own strenuous efforts with Ralph’s mother, building a bridge of good intentions and little deeds. Although it was always hard to second-guess quite what it was that Lily had wanted from her. Alice smoothed the Penhaligon’s lotion into her forearms and round her neck.
