She forgot about Greg. She forgot about the children outside. She even forgot about the grief that had been ravaging her. All of it fell away as he leant into her, the kiss going on and on, like a long, slow, cool drink of water on a hot, hot day. Nothing else mattered. They knew so little about each other beyond the bitter skirmish with his wife. And yet it was as if, in that moment, they were one person.

In her whole life, nothing has rent her heart as much as what happened that summer.

And now he is back. She thinks of him leaning over the railings, looking down at them, the flash of recognition when his eyes had locked on hers. The sudden dizziness she had felt at being in his orbit once more, after all these years …

‘Why? What did he do?’ Leah had asked, and Hilary had watched her eyes widening with horror as she had told her of his crime.

White-faced and silent, she had stared in amazement, and Hilary had felt a sharp twinge of guilt.

Now she pushes it away. It’s important that she remains patient. She will not lose control again. If she holds on a little longer, if she sticks to the plan, nothing will come between them.

Hilary stands under the shower, allowing these thoughts and memories to pour down through her until the hot water cools and eventually turns cold.

JULY

12

Leah

Leah waits in the car. She wishes Jake would hurry, feeling conspicuous and uneasy out here on her own.

The window is rolled down but there’s no air wafting through. Heat shimmers over the bonnet, making the vista beyond it wavy and blurred. There hasn’t been rain for weeks, and the grass of the field, around which the housing estate sprawls, is tawny and bald. A gang of boys shoot past on bicycles, their wheels kicking up dust. They peer through the window at her and hoot with laughter.

Leah shifts in her seat, and watches them pass. The cotton of her skirt sticks to the underside of her legs. In a garden a few doors down, two women are sunbathing, rolls of fat beneath their bikini-tops, cans of Budweiser in their hands. She glances at the white uPVC door that had shut behind Jake, the house swallowing him. Net curtains obscure the windows. Paint blisters on the walls outside. In the small garden, there’s a set of miniature goalposts, two bins stuffed so full the lids won’t close. It’s hard for her to imagine that Jake once lived here. There was a time when he called that house his home. A place where he built a whole other life without her – Jake and Jenna, fresh from their summer romance, scrabbling to adapt to the news of a baby on the way. Leah looks at the bins, imagines she can smell the refuse from here. Putrefaction. Filth. Her stomach turns.