‘Didn’t fancy driving with your usual Saturday morning hangover, you mean.’

‘Let’s not start a row, Nina. Let’s have a bit of peace for just one evening. Sir William is my company chairman. I have to take it as an honour that we were asked to this wedding, and if we have an uncomfortable evening and night because of it, that can’t be helped. It’s part of the job.’

‘Just how pompous can you get?’ said Nina with what in a less attractive woman would have been a called a snarl. ‘I wonder what Sir William-Bloody-Tarrant would say if he could see his sales director after he’s got a bottle of whisky inside him.’

‘He doesn’t see me,’ said James, lighting a cigarette, and adding because she hadn’t yet broken his spirit, ‘That’s your privilege.’

‘Privilege!’ Nina, who had been furiously unpacking her case and throwing clothes on to one of the beds, now stopped doing this because it sapped some of the energy she needed for quarrelling. She sat down on the bed and snapped, ‘Give me a cigarette. You’ve no manners, have you? Do you know how uncouth you are? This place’ll suit you fine, it’s just up to your mark, gas meters and a loo about five hundred yards away. That won’t bother you as long as there’s a bar. I’ll be able to have the privilege of sharing my bedroom with a disgusting soak.’ She drew breath like a swimmer and plunged on. ‘Do you realize we haven’t slept in the same room for two years? Didn’t think of that, did you, when you left booking up till the last minute? Or maybe – yes, that was it, my God! – maybe you did think of it. Oh, I know you so well, James Armadale. You thought being in here with me, undressing with me, would work the oracle. I’d come round. I’d – what’s the expression? – resume marital relations. You got them to give us this – this cell on purpose. You bloody fixed it!’

‘No,’ said James. He said it quietly and rather feebly because he had experienced such a strong inner recoil that he could hardly speak at all.

‘You liar! D’you think I’ve forgotten the fuss you made when I got you to sleep in the spare room? D’you think I’ve forgotten about that woman, that Frances? I’ll never forget and I’ll never forgive you. So don’t think I’m going to let bygones be bygones when you try pawing me about when the bar closes.’

‘I shan’t do that,’ said James, reflecting that in a quarter of an hour the bar would be opening. ‘I shall never again try what you so charmingly describe as pawing you about.’

‘No, because you know you wouldn’t get anywhere. You know you’d get a slap round the face you wouldn’t forget in a hurry.’

‘Nina,’ he said, ‘let’s stop this. It’s hypothetical, it won’t happen. If we are going to go on living together – and I suppose we are, though God knows why – can’t we try to live in peace?’