‘They need Mummy or Daddy there.’

Her martyrdom was slightly blunted when he started pulling dirty laundry from his suitcase mid-argument and sorting it out.

‘They’re so tiny,’ she wailed as the sea of rugby shirts rose.

‘You left them,’ he pointed out matter-of-factly, separating lights from darks. For a mountainous and masculine man, Aleš was refreshingly domesticated. Friends always assumed Bridge had house-trained him, but he’d come fully loaded from the start, with added stain-remover and fabric conditioner.

‘I came back early for a job interview! You just wanted a booty call.’

‘But you did not get job,’ he said as he loaded the machine. ‘I did get booty call.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Bridge felt uncharacteristically tearful, which she guiltily acknowledged could be as much about the job as the kids, who utterly adored being in Poland with all the family. ‘I can’t believe our babies are thousands of miles away right now.’

‘I could only get one stand-by ticket. I had to be with you, moja kochana.’ He pulled off his shirt. It was a very Fantasy Ash move, only marred by Aleš studying the washing instructions on the label.

‘We were apart one night.’ The fight had gone out of her argument as she tilted her head and, squinting, visualised the dog tags swinging against the six pack. ‘Just one night.’

‘How crazy is that? I missed you so much.’ He cast her a smile over one big shoulder, and she found herself wondering if he wouldn’t suit a tattoo there, something Maori perhaps, or a Roman armour sleeve like the one she’d seen at the gym. On the pec dec. A man with wolf eyes.

Loosening the knot on her dressing gown, Bridge levered herself up onto the washing machine so she could wrap her legs around him. ‘You crazy big Pole.’

‘Hey, what is this?’ He had a sock in each hand.

She slid her hands around his neck and pulled him closer. ‘Do you think you can go again?’

Ash was out of the cellar.

*

Mack still wasn’t answering his phone. Ringing from the stable cottage, Pax wished she’d emailed him while she had the chance in the Mack Shack, craving the cool calm of written words compared to the improvised chaos of speaking after the tone: I think it’s best if I stay at the stud for a few days. I have collected some of my things. Can we talk about Kes ASAP? Pax. Not: ‘Mack, it’s me again. We need to – that is, I’m going to – be quiet, Stubbs! – my phone died and I’m now at the stud, I mean don’t call my phone, call here. Kes can stay here. I’m staying here. He can be with you too. We need to work out days. Can you call me when you get this?’

Her laptop sat uselessly on the table behind her, a reminder that her late grandparents and Lester had barricaded themselves into their generation, firmly attached to a world where one wrote letters, even to near neighbours, and stayed married at all costs. Ronnie, who sprang from a mobile-free, guilt-free era of baby boomers that left notes on mantelpieces and deserted marriages as casually as popping out to the shops, was equally unbothered by the stud’s prehistoric isolation, treating it as a digital detox; she was happy camping here like a gypsy, a temporary curator, her bags barely unpacked. For Pax, doing without Wi-Fi and alcohol simultaneously was a double cold turkey which, so soon after Christmas, was already choking her. Her thrash metal headache was pounding now, the urge to kick things making her leg muscles twitch constantly.