When she returned home from school that Monday afternoon, after Paris, confused and bereft as to the disappearance of Mr Hough, she’d still not heard from Jules or Nina. What began as a bulb of anger grew and flared in her chest, growing roots, fronds of fire furling. Did she mean so little to them that they could stand her up and extend no explanation or apology? Was her life as small and unimportant as they made it out to be? Her husband had left her, so too had her friend (Mr Hough was a friend, right?) and Charlotte’s teacher, rendering both mother and daughter distraught, and she had no friends to call and tell. She couldn’t confide in Vita or the other mums about Mr Hough; what if he came back? Please let him come back. But it had been a month and there was still no sign of him. No response or call back. He had gone.

The truth was, though, she hadn’t told Nina or Jules about Mr Hough either, had she? And why not? Was there something wrong at the core of their friendship that had stopped her? A sixth sense that below the surface she couldn’t trust them? She was so cross, and felt so let down by them, she couldn’t tell any more.

She wouldn’t contact them, she promised herself, and when they eventually called, she wouldn’t answer: let them feel rejected this time. She raced through to the kitchen and got a large black sack. She threw in any of Ted’s things she could see: pretentious books, piles of discarded GQ magazines, his flat cap collection. She was taking out the trash: Ted, her so-called friends and anyone else who couldn’t give her the respect she deserved. She got to work.

*

Alice’s gusto after her ruthless clear-out lasted about a week. And then she started to feel guilty. Really, really guilty. Her husband had left her, after all. Her children were now from a broken home. Could she have worked at her marriage harder, as her mother had suggested? Supported Ted more when he was struggling with Charlotte? And what had she been doing, flirting with Mr Hough? As sadness enveloped her, she became convinced she had imagined the whole flirtation. But then she would go back to the photo of him at the beach. Stare again at his sea-splashed skin. Wonder where he was. Had the allure of Cornwall that weekend proved too much? Had he never returned to Oxford? Had he met someone there? Someone who wasn’t saddled with three children and an angry husband?

Vita took pity on her as she slouched around the school gates one morning in her jogging bottoms and a manky old sweater she used to wear when she was a student. She’d uncovered it in her clear-out and barely taken it off since. ‘Come, Alice, I need some help with the remodelling. Tomorrow? After drop-off is good?’

‘I don’t do that any more. I told you.’