‘No I can’t. He told you he loved you, and did you feel the same way?’

She rested her left hand on the table and looked at her fingers, long and fragile, their tips drumming like hooves, the rings her husband had given her on her middle one now. ‘No man had ever said that to me, not even Bay. After him, all my boyfriends had been…’ She looked at the fingers as they stampeded, and he could guess what she was trying to say. He’d been there enough years himself. Throwaway physical relationships that felt good at the time but left you empty.

‘They never lasted,’ she said carefully. ‘I was staggered, flattered, moved. I cried. Mack said he’d always look after me. Then he took me to bed.’

Luca didn’t want to think about it. There’s nothing like a middle-aged man with a new plaything, he reflected bleakly.

On the table the hooves had stopped galloping, the stampede sliding to a halt on a canyon edge. He saw she was dashing a tear away, jaw set, determined not to cry.

‘It was the worst night of my life.’

‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s just that… I mean, I didn’t think I was all that experienced and he’d been married for years, but that’s when I realised… Do you really want to hear this?’

‘Only if you want to tell me.’

The Italian tourists had gone, the bar unmanned. An old Coldplay track played over the speakers. Luca could see her mind working, sensed the unhappiness attached to what came next, truth’s tipping point trying to keep balance.

‘The sex was just awful,’ she whispered. ‘I remember lying in bed afterwards in shock, thinking is that it?’ She looked up at him, red bands of mortification streaking her cheeks.

‘Why did you stay with him?’

‘Because I thought it would get better. Because being young and naïve I thought I could teach him a thing or two. He loved me and I thought I would grow to love him back because I couldn’t love Bay any more, and I’d only ever loved Bay. I stayed because I felt sorry for him. And I stayed because…’ She put her hand across her mouth, looking away, tears threatening again. She shook them away, forced an ironic smile. ‘Because our son Oliver was conceived that night. He died, he was stillborn…’ She held up her hand, cutting off his next question. ‘And please don’t say “I’m so sorry”.’ She second-guessed sympathy now.

Luca could only imagine the pain it must have caused.

She was staring at the fire. ‘By then I was Mrs Forsyth. I’d walked into it willingly, even if it didn’t take long to realise that the sex was never going to get any better, and that my husband was a lot more controlling than other people’s. He didn’t like me behaving indecorously or spending time away from him or having my own friends. But slowly, over the years, I started making secret friends: Stolichnaya, Absolut, Glen’s, Tamova.’