Mopping a ring of water from the table, she said, ‘Perhaps you should think of giving up work.’

‘I’d have thought you’d be the last person to suggest that.’ But I wondered wearily whether if she wasn’t right. Douglas had been so demanding recently, expecting so much from me and never seeming satisfied with what I did. I kept wondering what had happened to the kind, charming man I had married. I felt tired and pulled in too many directions at once.

I told my mother that Douglas and I would eat upstairs that night, given the bad atmosphere between us. We ate our meal in silence, but by bedtime he was repentant.

‘I don’t know what I said all that for, darling.’ He was lying with his head on my breast. ‘Don’t take any notice of me when I’m like that, will you? I’ve been alone so long I don’t know how to behave with someone. You know I’m only like this because I love you and I need you so much.’

I need you. I need you. Douglas’s constant refrain nowadays. He looked round at me, his expression contrite, and I was filled with sudden tenderness for him.

‘Can we try it again. Please, darling?’

I’d had to be very careful, very patient with him as a lover. One hint of my own, usually unsatisfied desires, and he built mountains of resentment and insecurity. Almost as soon as he was aroused he had to be in me. Sometimes he left it just too late, and came with agonized embarrassment almost at the first contact of our flesh. When he did manage to hold back until he was inside me it was over in seconds, but he was jubilant with himself.

We did have times of great affection and tenderness, but the frustrations of the bedroom seeped out to affect everything else. It was a huge obstacle to him, something he felt he had to work at, be good at. It was equally frustrating to me, except that I learned this was something he must never be made aware of. I found I was learning to tread very carefully with his moods, tiptoeing round him fearfully.

I turned to him, and we held one another. Half my mind was still occupied with Olivia and I tried to keep it that way. I still found Douglas attractive but I tried to avoid becoming aroused by him because he seemed so incapable of giving me anything sexually. I had begun to think of our love life very much as my wifely duty, more painful in its frustrated expectations than a complete absence of lovemaking would have been.

Douglas began to take his pleasure, running his hands over my body as if testing himself. I was ready for him as he plunged into me, panting with anxiety. He thrust into me once and it was over. He laid his head next to mine as if with relief, then raised it to smile at me, searching my face with his eyes.