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Would anyone seriously propose that it should be compulsory to don a helmet to walk? The question was absurd, and yet even as she asked it she realised that even such an absurdity could not be ruled out. If a society could ban the throwing of sweets into the audience during a pantomime, or insist that people holding a church barbecue should attend a course to teach them how to fry sausages safely, then it was capable of anything. Yes, she thought, our very ordinary freedoms were being rapidly eroded by the nanny state, but it was difficult to make the point without sounding strident, or like an opponent of motherhood and apple pie. So she had done nothing to defend these freedoms, which made her … the realisation was a shocking one: it made her one of Christopher Dove’s free riders.

The purchase of stamps at the post office at least took her mind off issues of civic duty and freedom. Then, crossing the road, she made her way towards the delicatessen. She had decided to tell Cat directly about the engagement and to breeze her way through any hostile reaction. She should not be intimidated by her niece; the worst thing one could do with a moody person was to pander to her moods. If Cat chose to go into a sulk, then she could do so, and Isabel would simply bide her time until she was ready to come out of it. She always did get over things, even if it took a little while.

Five or six doors from the delicatessen was the small jewellery shop, run by two young women, where Isabel had seen the ring that she thought she would buy for Jamie. She had imagined that she might go there with him and have his ring finger measured, but now, on impulse, she went in. One of the jewellers was at her workbench at the back of the room, peering through a large magnifying lens at some intricate piece of jewellery. She looked up when Isabel came in and smiled; they knew one another slightly, as Isabel occasionally took in items from the collection of jewellery she had inherited from her mother. There had been a pearl necklace that needed restringing. It had belonged to a great-aunt in Mobile, Alabama. “Particularly fine pearls,” the jeweller had said. “Look at their lustre.” Isabel had looked and had seen why it was that pearls needed their own adjective: pearlescent. There was no other word for their colour, their sheen, their very texture.

“Pearls?” the jeweller said.

“No, a ring this time,” said Isabel. “I saw a ring in the window—a man’s ring. Gold.”

The jeweller set aside the necklace she had been examining and switched off the workbench light. “Was it rose gold?”

Isabel said that it was. “It was a lovely colour. That’s why I noticed it.”

“We still have it,” said the jeweller, standing up and reaching for a bunch of keys. “I made it myself. I thought that a man might walk past the window and buy it as a signet ring. But none has. Perhaps there aren’t enough men.”

Isabel laughed. “There never are, are there?” And she thought: that’s absolutely true—the demographers confirm it. Yet one of these increasingly rare men has asked me to marry him.

The jeweller extracted the ring from a display case and handed it to Isabel; it felt heavy in her hand, as it should, and warm too. She held it in her palm and knew. This was the ring she would give Jamie.

“Could you have it engraved?” she asked.

The jeweller nodded. She was looking at Isabel with interest, as if she was aware that this was an important moment. “Of course. I could do it myself. It’s broad enough. Sometimes it’s tricky with very delicate rings, but there’ll be no problem with this one. Just write down what you want.”

The jeweller handed Isabel a small piece of paper and a pen. Isabel gave her back the ring and took the paper. But then she realised that she had no idea what she wanted engraved. Jamie’s initials? The initials of both of them? A date? The problem for Isabel was that she found herself in this realm of personal, emotional gesture, and she was unsure of the territory. There were people, she felt, who were much better at this sort of thing than