The room was too cold to sit in any longer. She tried the gas fire, turned on the switch to ‘full’, but the match she held to it refused to ignite it, and presently she made her way downstairs and into a little lounge where there was a coal fire and people were watching television.

They met again at the dinner table.

James Armadale had drunk getting on for half a pint of whisky, and now, to go with the brown Windsor soup and hotted-up roast lamb, he ordered a bottle of burgundy.

‘Just as a matter of idle curiosity,’ said Nina, ‘why do you drink so much?’

‘To drown my sorrows,’ said James. ‘The classic reason. Happens to be true in my case. Would you like some wine?’

‘I’d better have a glass, hadn’t I, otherwise you’ll drink the whole bottle.’

The dining room was full and most of the other diners were middle-aged or elderly. Many of them, he supposed, would be wedding guests like themselves. He could see that their arrival had been noted and that at the surrounding tables their appearance was being favourably commented upon. It afforded him a thin wry amusement to think that they would be judged a handsome, well-suited and perhaps happy couple.

‘Nina,’ he said, ‘we can’t go on like this. It’s not fair on either of us. We’re destroying ourselves and each other. We have to talk about what we’re going to do.’

‘Pick your moments, don’t you? I’m not going to talk about it in a public place.’

She had spoken in a low subdued voice, quite different from her hectoring tone in their bedroom, and she shot quick nervous glances at the neighbouring tables.

‘It’s because this is a public place that I think we stand a better chance of talking about it reasonably. When we’re alone you get hysterical and then neither of us can be rational. If we talk about it now, I think I know you well enough to say you won’t scream at me.’

‘I could walk out though, couldn’t I? Besides, you’re drunk.’

‘I am not drunk. Frankly, I probably shall be in an hour’s time and that’s another reason why we ought to talk here and now. Look, Nina, you don’t love me, you’ve said so often enough, and whatever crazy ideas you have about my having designs on you, I don’t love you either. We’ve been into the reasons for that so many times that I don’t need to go into them now, but can’t we come to some sort of amicable arrangement to split up?’

‘So that you can have all the women you want? So that you can bring that bitch into my house?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘you can have the house. The court would probably award you a third of my income, but I’ll give you more if you want. I’d give you half.’ He had nearly added, ‘to be rid of you,’ but he bit off the words as being too provocative. His speech was already thickening and slurring.