Behind them a door slammed. Charlotte had heard the whole thing.

Alice pressed her fingertips to her forehead and let out a deep and weary sigh.

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, distracted. Wondering what she should be doing next. Her husband had hurt her daughter.

He slid her iPad over the table to her, where her text message exchange with Mr Hough was laid out. He stared at her, his blue eyes dark as he glared, a blaze of red slashed across his cheeks.

Her eyes widened as she stared down, Mr Hough’s torso, and her messages, lying exposed on their farmhouse kitchen table. Mortification seeped out of her skin. It had never occurred to her Ted would be able to see them.

‘I’m leaving,’ he said. And she didn’t try to stop him.

*

He began packing immediately, moving his things out to the car. He sat the children down and gingerly explained he was moving out ‘for a little bit’. Alice was pleased to see he looked guilty, even if he showed no remorse towards Charlotte as he was leaving.

‘And it’s nothing to do with any of you,’ Alice emphasised, trying to look at the three of them equally as she spoke. ‘Mummy and Daddy both still love you very much.’ But Ted stayed silent on the opposite couch.

Charlotte kept her eyes trained downwards on her iPad. Alice recognised the irrepressibly catchy ‘Life Goes On’.

‘Is it my fault, Mummy?’ Charlotte asked at bedtime, not moving her eyes from the book she was reading, one she had created herself: BTS ULTIMATE BEST EVER FAN GUIDE FOR SUPREME FANDOM!!! ‘That Daddy’s gone? Is it because we don’t get along?’

Alice put her hand on Charlotte’s cheek. ‘It’s not your job to get along with Daddy, sweetheart. It’s mine,’ she said sardonically, and she pulled an awkward grimace, her eyes flaring. They both laughed.

*

Jules

Jules strode into the office the next morning as though nothing had happened. As though her marriage wasn’t over, as though her friends had been in touch, as though she hadn’t received an email from the IVF clinic first thing confirming the cancellation of her procedure that week. Paul must have contacted them.

Jack, the team secretary, did a double take, spluttering into her coffee as Jules strode past.

‘Change of plan!’ Jules called airily, gripping her tote bag and trying her best to sound sunny.

‘Jules?’ Ralph said, emerging from his office with two women Jules didn’t recognise close behind. They discreetly slipped away. Ralph rubbed his forehead at the exact spot where Jules would have worry lines if it wasn’t for Dr Maryam. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, and added, before she had a chance to respond, ‘You’d better come in come in to my office.’

*

She sat down facing his mahogany desk, covered in oak-framed photographs of vaguely famous sportsmen. The panelled walls reminded Jules of an alpine ski resort.

He opened with: ‘We need to talk about your performance.’ So this is rock bottom, Jules thought.