‘Of course you do! Look at your house,’ she scolded. ‘It’s stunning. I need your eye. Please, Alice.’

Alice went along because it was easier to say yes to Vita than no. Which she suspected explained all the husbands.

She threw herself into the task, redecorating Vita’s new master wing (with side-by-side bedrooms for her and Mr Vita #5 and individual en suites. The dream, Alice thought). ‘I want my side to reflect me,’ Vita laughed, ‘sexy and passionate!’ And Alice laughed too. The project was an effective distraction from her pain.

She tried not to think about the Mantels, put what had happened down to her still finding her feet with her work. The good thing about Vita was that she didn’t lie. Alice knew that if she did a bad job, Vita would let her know about it.

Sometimes she worried she was trying too hard. She’d hear herself speaking and her whole body would pulse with embarrassment. ‘What you need are some really slutty flowers in the bedroom… Something juicy and alluring, like…’ Slutty flowers? What was she talking about? You’re turning into a parody of yourself, posh-girl-cum-interior-designer. But Vita loved the idea and that was why Alice was sitting at the kitchen table one Sunday afternoon after Ted had dropped the children off, in a comfortable shirt dress, flicking through wallpaper samples of flowers that looked like labias, when Phoebe said innocently, ‘Daddy’s new Mummy is nice.’

‘I’m sorry?’ she choked out, but she didn’t need clarification. Daddy’s Mummy had died when he was a child.

Under the table, Charlotte kicked Phoebe. ‘Ouch!’ Phoebe yelled.

‘She’s not pretty,’ Charlotte said bluntly. ‘Not like you.’ Her cheeks flamed red and she glared at Phoebe again.

‘It’s okay, Charlotte,’ Alice said, and she reached out and rubbed her shoulder.

It’s been a month! her brain was screaming. A month!

She smiled at her children, quietly eating their sausages and mash, the air thick with tension. ‘Sorry, no time for pudding tonight!’ she breezed tightly, and no one disagreed. She bathed them and put them in bed. Charlotte didn’t even complain about washing her hair, moving around the bathroom compliantly. Maybe I should have my heart broken every day, Alice thought miserably. She waited until the house was finally quiet and then fell into a heap on the mustard love seat, pulled a thick teal blanket up to her chin and sobbed and sobbed until her throat felt dry and raw and her eyes were so bloodshot she could barely see.

She called him. ‘Are you seeing someone?’ she asked when he answered.

‘So?’ he responded churlishly. ‘What did you expect?’

‘I expected you to have a bit more respect. And not to introduce anyone new to our children so soon,’ she said angrily. ‘How long has it been? Five weeks? Six? When did you meet her?’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ he sneered. ‘You were trying it on with Charlotte’s teacher, Alice! And you didn’t even have the decency to do it discreetly. Do you know what it was like to see those messages while you were in Paris with your friends having a good time?’ She held her phone away from her ear as he berated her, clutching a tissue with her other hand. ‘You’ve made your bed,’ he spat. ‘Now lie in it.’