‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and a lump came to her throat. ‘I can’t do it. But I hope when you do meet someone, again – and you will, Marc – that you will remember this, and stay on the straight and narrow with her. And that’s what I wanted to say to you today.’ She stood up and picked up her bag. ‘I wish you every good thing in life, Marc. I had very happy times with you, and that’s how I will remember us,’ she said quietly, before turning and walking away from him with tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving him bereft.

*

‘You did what was best for you. And if it’s any comfort, I think you did the right thing, Marie-Claire,’ Lizzie said forcefully as they necked a couple of beers on her patio that evening. ‘He’s one leopard that will never change his spots.’

‘Yeah,’ Marie-Claire sighed. ‘I gave him his chance. He didn’t take it. I know when he was telling me he’d never betray me again that he believed it. But in years to come, whenever temptation reared its head, when our marriage had settled into domesticity and all the rest of it, and he became bored, as he inevitably would, I’d always be checking up on him because I wouldn’t trust him. Some women can cope with men like Marc, and fair dues to them. But for me, infidelity is a deal breaker. I couldn’t live like that.’

‘Me neither.’

‘And I guess being honest was, in the end, a lot more satisfying that being “passive-aggressive”,’ Marie-Claire said wryly, remembering her grandmother’s accusation.

‘There was nothing passive-aggressive about what you did today, MC. You told him straight. Guess who’s going to come into work tomorrow in a fouler?’ Lizzie grinned, chomping on her Tayto crisps with relish. ‘How about I meet you at the Amsterdam for lunch and I can tell you all the news from the office and you can have the smoked brisket sandwich you never got to have today?’

‘Sounds good to me, Lizzie.’ Marie-Claire clinked bottles with her friend and lay back in her lounger and felt the stress and tension that had built up in her since she’d made her arrangement to meet Marc begin to drift away on the balmy Canadian breeze.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Dublin

‘Have I got news for you!’ Marie-Claire stood up and hugged Ella, who had emerged through a throng of people on Dame Street, into Eddie Rocket’s, where Marie-Claire had managed to secure a booth. Town was heaving as the people who had voted Yes and worked on the campaign for the Repeal referendum, came to mark another step on the long hard road of choice and equality for Irish women, with a landslide victory announced earlier in the day.