‘Yes, thank you,’ Anton replies stiffly. Then, getting to his feet, he touches a hand to her shoulder briefly and, softening his voice, he says: ‘I’d best go in.’

She watches him retreat back up the steps into the house. Jake has already gone inside.

Leah bends down and picks up Anton’s mug, discards the tea into the grass, and steps down into the shadows.

Over dinner, they discuss work, an upcoming audition Jake is preparing for, news at the office that one of the senior partners is leaving. Polite, civil conversation, but Leah feels the strain of all that is left unsaid. A ripple of discontent has been running through their relationship ever since the night she’d found Anton. In the immediate aftermath, there had been a full-scale row – the first of their relationship. Leah is not good at confrontation – she seizes up and becomes monosyllabic or mute – while Jake quivers with nerves and a frantic uneasiness, both of them unable fully to communicate their true feelings.

She had come home from the hospital in a taxi just as he was wandering up Wyndham Park, still puffy-eyed from sleep. He hadn’t been home all night – had no idea of where she had been, of the drama that had occurred – and this seemed like a betrayal to her. When she’d needed him, he had been unavailable to her. Quietly, she had said as much, and he had recoiled at the accusation, then reacted. ‘Nothing happened!’ he had said. ‘I fell asleep on Mattie’s bed, that’s all! I was putting him down for the night, and he asked me to cuddle him for a few minutes, and I fell asleep. All that sun – I just passed out.’

‘Your phone was switched off,’ she had countered coldly.

‘So?’

She had turned away from him, exhaustion creeping through her bones, but waiting for an answer nonetheless.

‘So it was switched off. So what? Mattie was falling asleep. I often turn my phone off when I’m with him. Haven’t you yourself remarked on how I ought to spend less time looking at the phone when he’s there?’

She had waited. His answer was so flimsy. The screechiness of his tone grated on her nerves, fed her suspicions.

‘Is this how it’s going to be?’ he had asked her. ‘Every time I’m with them, every time I don’t jump to answer the phone to you, you’re going to just leap to some ridiculous conclusion?’

‘Is it ridiculous?’ She had met his gaze with a cold clear one of her own. Her voice was firm and hard. ‘If there’s something going on between you and Jenna, I’d rather you just told me. I won’t fall to pieces, but I do want to know.’