‘Don’t be stupid. I just wondered.’ He busied himself with Digby, clapping for the little dog to jump to his clicking fingers. He didn’t look at me. ‘I need to get on, actually. Can we talk about the flat now?’

‘What about it?’ I ground the fag out hard.

‘Well, Serena and I –’

‘Oh.’ The penny dropped with a great big clank, rolled around the floor between us. ‘Oh, of course.’ I clapped a hand to my head. ‘You want to move her in.’

‘Look, just forget about bloody Serena, will you? Living with her isn’t really working out.’

Did he read the relief in my eyes? I cast them down as he went on. ‘So I need to – I’m just thinking about the future. After Glasgow.’

The future. I’d never known Alex plan for anything other than where he was drinking that evening. I thought of Serena; of Alex in his beautiful suit at Bel’s wedding – her glossy perfection set off by his rangy height. ‘You looked pretty loved-up to me the other week.’

‘Hardly. I mean, she’s beautiful, but – well, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Maggie –’ His voice was so quiet as he stared at me, and he almost said it and I could practically hear the ice cracking in my chest; feel my heart starting to thaw as Alex took a step towards me, his scarred hand extended. I froze for a second and then I forced myself to take a step back. I picked up a dishcloth and began to wipe the counter energetically. My mind was racing, rushing down alleyways that turned out to be dead-ends. He always did this to me. Could charm the birds out of the trees, Alex, on a good day.

‘I mean, Serena’s all right when I’ve had a drink or –’

It was a bad day, though. I stopped wiping. ‘I thought you weren’t drinking?’

‘I’m not.’ Too late. He wouldn’t look at me, searched desperately for any fragment of nail left to bite. ‘Well, hardly at all.’

‘Oh God, Alex. Why do you always have to lie?’

‘What – and you never do?’

My foot was hurting from standing too long; I sat heavily on one of the chrome kitchen chairs that he’d insisted we buy one drunken Sunday afternoon on Upper Street; chairs I’d always hated in the cold light of day. He always knew best, though. The silence spread between us like ripples in a pond. I felt so tired, so sad, so tired of being sad.