The Grange is one of those suburban pubs that makes you want to take a DART into town as quick as you can but you recognize that you are essentially trapped due to the cost of taxis. I’m not happy that Jenny is going to be overly-glammed up for a local bar tonight with Jerome. It’s killing me but I figure that the sooner it’s done with then the sooner it will be over. I cannot, in all honesty, believe that he doesn’t want anything more than friendship from my wife but I try to be upbeat. I squeeze my eyes really tight and I see red and red is the colour of depression. I am not depressed.

Jenny arrives downstairs wearing a dress that seems to me to be highly inappropriate for such an occasion. A catch-up drink, old friends – look at my arse, notice me, is what it says. The demon is in the detail. It’s bet on to her and that’s that. I send her up again and she is back within a couple of minutes in a pair of white trousers and a top that I bought her in H&M. I tell her that she has chosen well and that she looks fine. I don’t wish her to reach any level higher than fine tonight. She is wearing Quorum and it is so sweet on her that for a moment I forget that I am deeply unhappy about this evening. The kids are skulking around and they seem uneasy as to where Jenny is going.

Your mother is meeting an old friend tonight. There is nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing, I say.

Jenny eyes are unwavering and I go into the downstairs bathroom. I am weak at the knees and I can feel the linguine and the steak that I have eaten earlier on sitting at the bottom of my stomach. It’s there but it’s not comfortable. I have no option but to shove my index and my middle finger down my throat. I gag and it takes a couple of attempts and at first I don’t think that it’s going to work because I am only puking up small droplets of bile. But I give it one more go, I make a push for it and the red gush is so acidic coming up that it hurts my windpipe and I am without hope.