Stifling a yawn, she waved a dismissive hand. ‘We need a night off. I’ve got to be at the school first thing.’

‘Just kiss it quickly, eh?’ He invited her closer to his crotch with open palms like a shopping channel presenter showing off a Lightning Deal, as if she might not be able to navigate her way there without this helpful gesture.

Bridge summoned her sleeping libido back to life with the emergency button, allowing herself another flashback of Ash’s thumb in her mouth and silver eyes on hers.

‘I’ll ride you if you like.’ Not giving him the chance to negotiate, she climbed aboard, swiftly removing the boxers from around his listing chuja, which hardened gratifyingly fast.

For a few brief minutes they both revelled in the thrill, then it went rapidly downhill.

Offended that Bridge was facing his toes – ‘What is with reverse cowgirl?’…’ ‘What’s with you fecking knowing it’s called that?’ – Aleš spun her round to face him like he was rotating a king post, then grunted crabbily when she leaned so far back all he could see was her twin peaks.

Staring up at the ceiling, she wasn’t thinking of England. Or Ireland. She was thinking of the Orchard Estate. To Bridge it felt briefly electrifying.

But Aleš ruined it by sitting up and tipping her back, looming over her, his huge torso eclipsing the light, grumpy because she refused to kiss him or his hairy body, fearing her lip would split open again. Her libido jumped ship totally when he called her a lafirynda for coming to bed still in make-up, which she mistook furiously to mean whore, although Aleš explained in flagrante that this was more of a jokey ‘old trollop’.

They broke apart to regroup, gathering intimacy back around them like bedsheets. Aleš’s double standards astounded Bridge: shaming the wife whose sore mouth he was now repeatedly trying to guide down to his groin. But her own duplicity was surely worse? To prove her point, tired and ruthless, she remounted to ride him home as fast as she could, a galloping finish whipped along by Fantasy Ash who she closed her eyes to join one last time.

‘Moje szczęście!’ Aleš cried as he came. My happiness.

Not mine, thought Bridge sadly, kissing his forehead with her sore lips and hopping off to pull on her gown.

‘I think I just heard one of the kids awake,’ she said and escaped to the landing, pressing her hot face against the cool wall outside their door, touching her throbbing lip.

Both children were fast asleep. In the bedroom she could hear Aleš already snoring.

Bridge stole downstairs, gathering her powers. It smelled of bigos and blown-out candles. She relit them. Plain white, but they would have to do she thought as she carried them across to the sitting room, balancing them on the repaired crackle-glaze table and shouldering the coffee table chest and sofas to the walls, then peeling back the rug.