Ghost MacIndoe. Jonathan Buckley

want to have lots of regrets when you’re older. They eat you up, regrets.’

      ‘I don’t think I’m fearful, Mrs Beckwith.’

      ‘Don’t be. Because nothing lasts, Alex. The whites of my eyes, look at them. They’ve gone all mucky now. But they used to be like yours once. Look here,’ she instructed, and she pinched up a ridge of skin on the back of her hand and watched it subside. ‘I was a slender girl. A slip of a thing, my mother used to say. But nothing lasts,’ and she leaned over him. She kissed him lightly on the lips. Her lipstick pulled at his skin and he caught the sweet fume of her breath. Sitting on the arm of the chair once more, she breathed out as if exhaling smoke and gave him a look as if he had done something foolish but endearing. A key rattled angrily in the lock of the front door. ‘The princess returns,’ said Mrs Beckwith. ‘That you, Megan?’ she called out.

      ‘Who else?’ asked Megan from behind the opening door. ‘Hello, Eck,’ she said upon seeing him, and then she went out of the room, closing the door.

      ‘Sorry, Alex,’ said Mrs Beckwith after a minute. ‘Megan’s in a mood, it looks like.’

      ‘I’ll go then.’

      ‘Yes, OK,’ agreed Mrs Beckwith cheerfully, as if what had happened had been instantly forgotten.

       12. The Diet of Augsburg