We followed a long cool corridor to a priest’s cell. His bed was made, a brown coverlet folded back to show the starched white sheets underneath. A crucifix with an accepting Jesus hung above. John’s bags were new, brown leather, very smart, suitable for going overseas. I took off my jacket and shucked off my shoes to discover that I had mismatched socks on: one yellow, one green. Jesus, I couldn’t even pair socks! I climbed into the bed fully clothed. I had time to register the slight chill of the linen and my husband’s familiar mossy smell before I fell into a black sleep.

He was in the chair beside me when I woke up, dozing too. Would that he had climbed in beside me and kissed it better! I could feel the life of the retreat carrying on outside, the shadows of nuns moved as if on casters across beneath the bottom of the door. It was cosy, so I snuggled down in the bed a bit further and stretched like a cat before I could get off to sleep again.

–  Oh no, you don’t, Mrs Johns! I’m starvin’ and thanks to your ability to pass out for hours at a time we’ve missed lunch with the good Sisters. Get up, I’ll get us a taxi!

He was immaculate – every stitch he had on was new and had been laundered and ironed by nuns eager to please, his leather shoes gleamed as he walked; aside from a slight limp in his left leg he was every inch the man I knew. His dark head was closely shaved and his lips were red enough to make me swallow.

I had a pillow mark the length of my right cheek, juicy eyes from all the wailing I’d done, hair that had a bit of water flicked at it and it still only managed to set off how rumpled the rest of me was. We ventured forth anyway, two people with nothing in common except for five children, two little angels, a farm, a mother, a lifetime and a pair of plain gold bands.

I looked at the Victorian buildings flashing by and smiled like a tourist. The city looked lovely and grand in the muted light of afternoon. We sat in the window of a restaurant called Arancia so that I could look some more.