Page 151 of The Stranger in Room Six

We’ve been talking but there have also been silences. It’s the measure of a good relationship that you can have comfortable gaps. With Gerald they had always been awkward.

We walk along the Cobb, where Meryl Streep had been filmed inThe French Lieutenant’s Woman. ‘I love it here,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know you knew this part of the country.’

‘Only since you came here. Sometimes I’d drive past Sunnyside and hope to catch a glimpse of you. Then I’d walk along the cliff path and wonder how on earth I could get you to see me. In the end, I realized I just had to wait.’

He takes my hand in his. We haven’t so much as kissed but this feels even more intimate. That and the knowledge that he really has been waiting for me.

We walk past a news placard.

TYCOON BEDMONT ADMITS NAZI FAMILY TIES – CHARGED OVER PLOT TO MURDER DEPUTY PM’S SISTER.

‘Mabel could have been killed,’ I say, shivering.

‘You really care for her, don’t you?’

I nod. ‘She’s lived through so much, yet she could always see the better side of everyone. She told me to take a chance on you.’

He looks amused. ‘Is that how she put it?’

‘Not exactly. She just said there was still time to make a life together.’

‘There is, Belinda.’ He stops; cups his hands around my face. Looks me straight in the eye. ‘We might not be the same people we were at university. But we still share that kernel of understanding. That love. We are made for each other, Belinda. Please give me a chance. What have you got to lose?’

I think of the lie I’d told him at university when he’d said he had to return to an arranged marriage. I told him that was fine because I wasn’t ready to settle down. I hadn’t meant it. I just didn’t want to make it harder for him than it clearly was. But I’m not going to lie now.

‘What have I got to lose?’ I repeat. ‘The independence I have built up.’

‘But are you happy? Don’t you miss something?’

A sob escapes from my lips. ‘Yes. I miss Gillian and I want to see my grandson.’

‘I will help you,’ he says.

‘You can’t. They’re gone from me for ever.’

He holds me as I weep. People might be looking at me, but I don’t care. Imran is holding me. For the first time in years, I am beginning to feel safe and loved.

‘Live with me in London,’ he says.

‘I can’t. I have a job to do,’ I reply. However, as I say it, I realize that my time at Sunnyside is up. If Harry Marchmont knows the truth about my past, it won’t be long until management does too; not to mention the residents. They will all view me with suspicion.

‘We could open something together, Belinda,’ Imran says, as if reading my mind. ‘We could start a project, perhaps.’

My voice wobbles. ‘It’s too soon.’

‘After forty years?’ he asks, his eyebrows raised. ‘Please, Belinda. We let each other go at university. We can’t do it again.’

Then I hear Mabel’s voice in my head as if she is standing next to me.

‘Call yourself a Listener? Isn’t it time you listened to your own heart?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

He looks alarmed. ‘You mean, yes we can let each other go again?’

I stand on tiptoes to put my arms around his neck. ‘No.’ I am half-laughing and half-crying. ‘I mean yes, I will live with you.’