Eat the casserole tonight? Cooking exhausted her, she would have a piece of cheese and an apple, and tell the Astleys their food had been delicious.

The doorbell rang.

If she thought she herself looked strained, Jeff was a man who had aged twenty years in a couple of weeks. She looked at someone who appeared to be at the end of his life, all energy drained out of him to leave a man with greyish skin, a beak nose protruding from fallen cheeks, dead eyes. He wore an old jacket she thought he had thrown away and at his feet were two plastic carrier bags spilling over with unidentifiable stuff.

He said nothing. Nor did she, just opened the door wider and returned to the kitchen.

He set the bags on the floor, and after a moment, pulled out a chair and slumped at the table as if he had walked a hundred miles to get here.

‘I was going to put supper on.’

He shook his head.

‘The Astleys think I might starve.’

She stood looking down at the foil dishes and there was an odd silence which neither seemed willing to break.

She did not want to put the food away, or into the oven, she did not want to ask him why he was here, she wanted only to flick a switch and have Olivia sitting between them, fiddling with her hair while she looked at her maths book or her geography homework or a music magazine, waiting for supper, with the table laid and Jeff telling some work story or mentioning an item on the news or complaining about endless roadworks on his journey home. And Liv’s bag dumped in the middle of the hall to be tripped over.

Greta let out a single, terrible sob, as the scene shifted back.

‘I haven’t got anything else much. I was going to put a potato in to bake.’

They looked at one another and each saw how the other was.

‘It’s taken us as well. It’s taken what we were.’

‘It,’ Jeff said.

‘Well, I can’t say “she”. She.’

‘I started it.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself. Liv didn’t do it because she was missing you.’ She heard the cruelty in her voice.

‘No.’

‘We were fine.’

‘I know.’

‘Now I’m fine.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not fine.’

‘Get your head round it, Jeff. We never will be fine again.’

‘People cope.’

‘Oh, coping. Do you want tea?’

He shrugged and she wanted to scream at him to wake up, get himself together, help himself. Help her.

‘You’ve lost more hair,’ she said.

‘You mean I’m going bald.’

‘Balder. Yes.’

He was balder, the rest of his hair was thinner and greyer, the flesh on his neck was flabby though he had lost weight.

Greta said down beside him and put out her hand to touch his arm briefly.

‘What have you done with your life?’