‘Perhaps he’s a weirdo. Some mad recluse who only comes out at night and spends the rest of his time dressing in the dead wife’s clothes.’

She moves past him to the kitchen to make a start on dinner. ‘I’m sure he’s perfectly nice,’ she says.

‘If you say so.’

The atmosphere between them has grown slightly strained since his arrival home. This is not how she wants it to be – not how she envisaged it. So she lifts her mood, and adopts a more cheerful tone. ‘I got fish,’ she tells Jake.

He makes a noise of approval. ‘So this guy I met on the shoot today – Dara – he was telling me about a new round of funding the Film Board are putting out. Reckons I’d have a shot if I send in the short I’ve been working on.’

Leah listens to him talk as she rinses the salad and waits for the oven to heat. She has bought sea bass – Jake’s favourite – and there’s a bottle of white in the fridge. They’re going to eat outside, and Leah wonders whether she should make her announcement before or after dinner.

She is aware of the changed energy in the room since Jake’s return, the busy snap of his thoughts as he recounts his day’s events, breaking off to follow different tangents, his conversation interspersed with swigs from his can of beer and flipping the pages on the script he is half reading, his phone giving pipping alerts every time a WhatsApp message appears. It strikes her that there has been no transition from the solitary peace of being alone with the slow strains of her delicate piano-playing to the bustle and noise of Jake’s presence, the steady insistent beat of music he has put on, the demands on her attention. It is something she will grow used to, she expects – a period of adaptation, a settling in. They are so different from each other, yet it was his busy warmth, his almost childlike prattle and need for attention that drew her to him, saved her from drowning in her own quiet introspection. This is what I need, she tells herself.

‘How was work?’ Jake asks. Then, remembering, he adds: ‘Hey, did you guys go for lunch?’

‘Good. Yes, we all went.’

‘And how was it? How’s Tricia?’

‘Fine. The baby’s doing great.’

Leah is careful to keep her voice level. She doesn’t want it to betray any hint of how she’d felt.