With no better place to be, Claudia rested her back against the flock of duck-down pillows she had spent the last ten minutes rearranging. She shuffled up the bed, then down again, dug her left shoulder into her nest, then did the same with the right, but to no avail. Unable to cure her restlessness, she distracted herself by smoothing out the creases on the white Egyptian cotton sheet that protected her from the heavy damask of the duvet cover. The strap of her silk chemise slipped down her arm. She pulled it up, almost snapping it.

Claudia didn’t understand why everyone was ganging up on her. She had made a few errors of judgement, but she had made up for it since. Why couldn’t she be left in peace? Other people made mistakes. Why did hers have to happen in the midst of a disaster that had to be brought up over and over again?

Justin was bemused by her moods and seemed to think the best way to deal with Claudia was to give her some distance. She couldn’t remember the last time he had worked from home. He was back to his old ways, leaving early and coming home late. He was living for his work instead of living for his wife.

Shoving an elbow into her pillow, Claudia realised she had never felt comfortable in this bed. She closed her eyes and willed herself someplace else, and Declan’s scruffy little flat above the bakery came to mind too easily. She had always felt at peace there. It was somewhere where she never had to pretend to be something other than what she was.

‘What if it could be like this for ever?’ Declan had once asked her, kissing her bare shoulder as she lay tangled in sheets that were thin and scratchy.

‘You have to go back to Ireland, for your kids,’ she reminded him. It had been part of the initial attraction. Declan would return home when the theatre project was signed off, and no one need ever be the wiser.

‘I’ll be home soon enough, but what if you came with me?’

‘My life is here.’

‘Is that so? Then tell me, who’s your best friend? Who knows your darkest secrets? It’s not the likes of Phillipa, that’s for sure. And it’s not Justin either.’

‘Don’t,’ she said. Her husband was the one subject that was barred from their pillow talk.

‘Can your relationship be so great if you can’t even be open with him about your past? There’s a reason we fit together so well,’ he whispered, sliding a hand beneath the covers.