He came home at half past seven.

She heard the car. She had been hearing it all evening, or not hearing it, which was its own particular and specific thing, the way the absence of a sound you are waiting for becomes louder than most sounds that are actually present. She had been in the sitting room with a book she had not read and a cup of tea that had gone cold and the particular and specific company of her own heartbeat, which had been conducting itself at a slightly elevated rate since she had decided, on the drive home from the water, that tonight was the night.

She...