A real wife would’ve been suspicious. He’d arrived home at four in the morning, silently ascended the carpeted stairs to see his wife, Diane, curled under the blankets like a sick animal. Days went by and he never saw her in any other position. It had been too hot to sleep and he’d lain on top of the comforter, naked, still smelling of Rebecca. He hadn’t ever wanted to be a cheat. He didn’t romanticize infidelity. He’d wanted to be a good husband: he’d wanted nothing more in the world. He’d tried not to blame Diane for the guilt he felt every day. There were times when he was so frustrated he wanted to rip their house apart with his hands, take it down plank by plank and brick by brick. He wished he could start his life over again – he’d do everything the same, everything single thing except for Diane.

Last year his parents had celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They’d held a party in their garden. Over two hundred people turned up. People had travelled from other states. Several had caught a plane. Diane hadn’t been able to make it. After two hours of pleading, after banging his hands on the table-top, after smashing the bottle of twenty-year-old wine intended as a present, after punching his hand through a glass cabinet and cutting his knuckles, Yates had been forced to go without her, turning up late, knuckles bandaged and having already downed a quart of Scotch. He’d taken over the barbecue and stood there like a dumb mute servant, staring as the meat sizzled and spat globs of fat onto the fire. Yates had ended up in the most miserable, rotten relationship in the entire neighbourhood and everyone knew it. Some days the humiliation was enough to make him want to die, literally die, his heart to clog up, his lungs to turn as dry as dust.