‘Look, I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting for … well, for some kind of grand reunion but, honestly, that’s never entered my head. I liked you back then,’ he says tenderly, ‘but I loved Charlotte.’

‘How could you say that?’ she asks, and he’s surprised by the disgust that creeps into her tone.

‘Because it’s true. I mean, yes, I was unfaithful. God knows I tested her sorely on that point. I like women,’ he admits. ‘I always have.’

‘No,’ she tells him firmly. ‘No, that’s not how it was. You’re mistaken. What we had was special. It was unique.’

The colour in her cheeks has flared and spread. Her face is blotchy and flushed. Beneath the calm, controlled exterior, her passions are running close to the surface – he can see that clearly. ‘Hilary –’

‘We came together because we recognized something missing in each other that only we could fill. I am your missing piece and you are mine,’ she insists.

‘It was a casual fuck!’ he shouts, exasperated. ‘That’s all! Enough of this madness about missing pieces and being special. There was nothing special about it! You want to know what I saw in you back then? Convenience. You were right there beneath my doorstep. It was easy. No inventions, no elaborate excuses for where I’d been. A bit of fun – a distraction to break up the boredom. I didn’t love you, Hilary – if anything, I felt sorry for you. When you told me you couldn’t have children, and then Charlotte insisting the dog be put down and afterwards, realizing that the dog was like your child or something … It was sympathy, but it wasn’t love.’ His voice changes, growing hard once more. ‘I pitied you, Hilary. Your sad, pathetic yearning, your ridiculous romantic sensibility. Anyone could see that your husband – that dull, unimaginative drip – would never be enough to satisfy you. Easy pickings, that’s what you were. That’s all you were.’

Exasperation has made him cruel, pushed him beyond the point to which he had wanted to go. And now, looking up, he sees that his words have tipped the balance. The light of conviction has died in her eyes. They are dull and dry, her mouth a thin line. She is still kneeling on the floor looking up at him, and it is only now, in the awkward silence that descends, that it seems to hit her – the wildly inappropriate nature of this exchange, how she has demeaned herself with her admissions, her actions. It is almost unbearable, the way she draws herself in, getting to her feet awkwardly, one foot and then the other, tucks the wing of hair back behind her ear. He can hardly bring himself to look at her, but when he does, he sees that same flat stillness in her face. The high colour is gone from her cheeks. Instead she seems jaundiced, unwell.