Two years ago it had happened, and Grace’s heart had shattered into an infinite number of unrecoverable pieces as the Perky Yoga One had nonchalantly untwined herself from straddling Matthew’s naked hips and sauntered off to the en suite. Stopping only to do a bend and snap to retrieve her postage-stamp-sized thong from the floor. Later on, Matthew’s reasoning for being naked in their bed with another woman was that he thought Grace would be ‘out for the whole day looking after your mother again like you always are’. He got lonely, apparently.

Struggling to function for weeks after he moved out, Grace had slumped into a depression brought on by sleepless nights full of flashbacks of Matthew being caressed by a tight-bottomed, naked woman in the very bed that she was trying to sleep in. And unable to pay all of the rent on her own, she had lost the flat they had shared. It was then that she’d moved back into her childhood home here with Cora.

Her mother hadn’t been bedbound back then, but had still needed help with day-to-day tasks. So with Grace in a dark pit of grief for the relationship and future life she had thought she was going to have with Matthew, and her passion for the performing arts having dissipated, she had left her job dancing in the chorus line of a West End show and dwindled into becoming her mother’s carer instead. A solitary role, which had suited her just fine at the time, as it meant Grace was able to retreat even further into herself, away from the outside word and all the dangers it held … like predatory, perky yoga-teacher types! Being reclusive felt like a protection of sorts, where Grace could keep herself safe from potential heartbreak. Because on that horrible day her world really had fallen apart. She had trusted Matthew with her life, and it was as if he’d sucked the air right out of it and she had been over and over this a million times inside her head. Constantly replaying that moment when Matthew had opened his half-closed ecstasy eyes and spotted her in the bedroom doorway where she had stood. Frozen. Watching the scene as if by satellite on a time delay. The two beautiful bodies moving as one in perfect symphony and slow motion, immersed in their sensual delight of each other.