‘You know, at his trial it was all talk of Charlotte and what a flirt she was but, really, he was far worse. Charlotte was harmless. All that behaviour was just her way of looking for attention. But Anton? The way he went after women was single-minded and focused. Later I found out he’d tried it on with half the ladies in the tennis club. Kathy Fairfax had an affair with him, apparently. And rumour has it there were one or two ladies around Wyndham Park who succumbed to his charms.’ She shudders. ‘I’ll never forget his eyes that day of our lunch, the way they zeroed in on me when he laid out what he wanted. So serious and intent. No shame at all. Later, when I heard what he’d done to Charlotte, I wasn’t all that surprised. Something icy about that man. Something twisted. Did he ever try it on with you?’

The question comes at Hilary suddenly and, flustered, she swallows her wine and quickly shakes her head, no. Tears jump into her eyes with this denial. For years she has disowned their love, and now here she is, denying it again, only this time the denial is real. He doesn’t love me, she thinks. He never did.

‘Are you all right?’ Maria asks, putting her hand out to grasp the crook of Hilary’s elbow. ‘My God, Hil, you’re crying. What is it? What’s the matter?’

Hilary cannot speak. The grief she has been keeping at bay surges up inside her. She gets up from the bench, the grass a green blur through her tears as she staggers across the lawn, like some blind Minotaur. Behind her, she hears Maria saying loudly: ‘Poor thing – she must have worn herself out.’ And even though she knows she will feel embarrassed by her own behaviour, right now all she can feel is a great sense of loss rampaging through her. The life she has conceived, the future she had constructed so carefully over the years, has all been ripped asunder.

In the kitchen, guests crowd around the island, clogging her route. She has to push through to the hall, her high-heeled sandals clattering up the stairs. She can feel them watching, senses the hush that falls as she passes, her distraught state observed. It’s unbearable the way they look at her, unbearable the way this hurt presses through her chest, harsh and unrelenting. She is a fool, a stupid, vacuous idiot, and when she reaches her bedroom and slams the door, she doesn’t throw herself on the bed and start bawling: instead she goes straight to the corner by the radiator and slides down so that she’s curled up against the wall, shaking like a distressed animal, wanting so badly to hide herself away, such is the shame that slices through her.