‘After all that I’ve done for you, saving you from rock bottom, giving you everything you could want or need—’

‘On the seventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,’ she murmured, ‘seven sleepless nights, six of the best, fiiiive old sins.’

‘I might have guessed spending time with your mother would lead to something like this!’

‘Four cruel words, three Scottish Glens, two hurtful loves and a—’

‘Tishy, are you even fucking LISTENING?’

His voice had conjured Ewan McGregor the first time they’d met, she remembered. Close your eyes and he was no longer a black-haired, rugby-mad civil engineer from Argyll, he was Obi-Wan Kenobi. How naïve was that?

‘I just need some space to think, Mack.’

‘FUCKING WELL THINK FAST!’

‘I am.’ Her calmness infuriated him, she knew, but in her head her outwardly honey-soft words shrilled. Her mind was constantly whirring, her senses heightened, like exam week at university. ‘I think about nothing else.’

She could hear him breathing deeply, that annoying wheeze that signalled a mood change, followed by the gruff laugh she’d loved so unquestioningly once, all fresh air and heather. ‘C’mon, Tishy. Let’s make up, eh?’ Never Pax. Mack had rebranded her when they’d first met, taking old-fashioned Patricia that she’d been christened with and, for a long while, making her feel safe. Tishy was loved. Then, as now, he’d been utterly dogmatic.

‘Let’s stop this silliness.’ His voice was brusque. ‘It’s a new year, a new start.’

She could almost swear she could hear ‘… and I’m feeeeeling good’ in the back of his throat. It was typical of Mack, impatiently expecting her to snap out of it, to fix her charming wife smile back on, show her class. He was always happier north of the border, almost child-like with homecoming joy.

‘We’ll talk about it when you get back,’ she said stiffly. ‘Talk properly, just you and me.’

‘Who says I am coming back?’

She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands with an irritated growl, making the puppy in the back of her car lift its head. This was typical posturing. ‘Don’t let’s go there, Mack. Just don’t.’

The laughter vanished from his voice. ‘Six days ago, you said – and I quote – “this marriage is over”.’

Four words spoken in the heat of the moment had changed everything between them.

Where had her lava of repressed anger erupted from after the Stilton and figs? Yes, she’d drunk too much that day; they’d both overdone the Christmas cognac, but that usually anaesthetised her discontent. Besides which, it was something of a personal challenge to get tight in her in-laws’ bungalow, where the spirits tantalus – kept under lock and key – had not been topped up since the Scottish referendum. There was no blue flame above the discount supermarket Christmas pudding when the Forsyths hosted.

The countdown to Pax’s outburst had been more dyspeptic than distraught. No secrets uncovered, no love affairs, no explosive Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolf whisky-slinging. Just the annual skin-grating ennui of a loveless marriage at Christmas. Their relationship had been as stale as Mairi Forsyth’s oatcakes for years. It hardly ever went from dead water to tempest, and although it had been on the rocks more than once before, they knew how to patch up the hull and sail on. Business partners as well as life ones, the couple were adept at keeping up a good show.