And along with his quiet threats, which made me go cold, that was the thing I feared, I thought, as I parked the car an hour or so later. His temper. He’d never raised a hand to me, ever, but his fury could be so vile; his words so wounding; the things he called me, which I won’t repeat, so crushing, that occasionally I wished he would hit me. Sometimes it took me so long to recover, that not even Melissa or Helena could reach me. I shrank into my quiet, dark shell. And wrote. For days on end. And of course I never complained to the children. I kept the picture as rosy as possible for them, as I always had done when they were younger, trying to shield them from the worst of his rages. They knew, though. They’d seen it. And been on the receiving end of the quiet threats too. I sometimes worried it was why Imo had chosen a university in America and stayed there ever since, and why Ned had remained very close, down the road in Ealing, but turned to God.

And actually, I thought, as I climbed my steps and put my key in the front door, and as classical music filtered through to me in the hall, the sun pouring through the French windows at the back of the house, rosy was what we most certainly pretended we were, a lot of the time. We rubbed along quite genially, until the next storm clouds gathered. And naturally, the more you pretend, the more you convince yourself it’s the truth. Some days were even good. As Michael’s voice, strong and musical (not unlike that of Simon Callow, an actor he greatly admired and knew a bit) boomed through, I knew this was a good one. I shut the door behind me with relief.

‘Darling!’ he called, getting up from his desk in the corner of the kitchen. He removed his reading glasses and came to greet me. He was very tall and broad, what you might call a commanding presence. He set his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me, concerned. ‘What a day you’ve had, what a mission! Are you completely knackered?’

‘Utterly,’ I agreed, relieved. Perhaps he’d had a pay cheque. Or lunch with Patrick; that always put him in a good mood.

‘I got one of those M&S fish pies for supper. I popped it in at about seven, so we can eat soon. Drink?’

‘Please,’ I agreed as I followed him into the kitchen. I didn’t drink much, as a rule (it featuring too strongly in my family’s repertoire) but I’d had a long drive. I perched on a stool at the island and watched as he poured me a glass of something cold and white. The kitchen, I noticed, was tidy. Rather sparkling.

‘You’ve had a clear-up,’ I observed, glancing around, surprised.