In response, he throws down the roller, paint splattering in the tray. ‘An option! Yeah. Long-distance parenting. Watching him grow up through a computer screen. Seeing him in the flesh once a month, if I’m lucky. And what happens when this baby comes?’ He gestures towards her belly, a quick swatting motion that alarms her, her hand moving instinctively to her tummy. A warning starts in her head. ‘Am I just going to shuttle between two countries to see my kids? Jesus!’

He hangs his head, puts a hand to his hair, flattening it forward over his brow, a nervous tic that she’s noticed whenever he gets deeply agitated. She can tell somehow that he’s on the brink of a decision that does not include her but will affect the course of her life and the baby’s. Jake and Jenna are committed parents. But it’s a commitment that excludes her, a claim on Jake’s heart that she cannot be a part of.

Perhaps he reads her thoughts for he bites his lip and brings his eyes up to hers. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to shout.’

She doesn’t respond, just waits, needing something more from him than that.

‘I just feel like I failed them, you know?’ He gives her a quick searching gaze, then looks away again. ‘If only there were a way to keep them here. If I could just earn some decent money, I could help out a bit more financially, so they could move somewhere better. It makes me feel so guilty that you and I are living out here while they’re stuck in that fucking ghetto.’

In her head she does silent calculations while the unease grows in her chest. Money is tight enough with the rent, and she has recently started thinking about ways they might save, hoping that someday they’ll be in a position to buy a place of their own. There will be crèche fees further down the road, unforeseen childcare costs. She can’t see where the money is going to come from, with Jake’s working life so precarious.

‘It’ll be okay,’ she says. ‘We’ll find a way to make things work.’

He turns his attention back to the walls, the uneven spread of green. The inadequacy of her response has disappointed him. She wants to comfort and reassure him but doesn’t know how.

‘And, anyway,’ she goes on, pushing forward optimistically, ‘once Ian gets the green light for the show, you guys can start filming, and then things will change. You won’t look back.’

He puts down the paint-roller, leans back on his haunches. ‘I spoke to Ian,’ he says quietly. ‘He got the green light.’

‘But that’s terrific!’ she cries, confused by the look that comes over him now. Instead of appearing happy about it, he seems sheepish, almost guilty.

‘I didn’t get the part,’ he tells her.