She looked so pink-cheeked and proud, Carly forgave her the boast. ‘Is she an actress?’

‘SFX make-up artist. Mostly TV, but she was in the prosthetics team for Futureland. Have you seen it? She had you-know-who in her chair for three hours a day most of last year.’

‘You’re kidding! I wanted to see that at the cinema, but Ash…’ She hesitated. ‘We’ll get the DVD when it comes out.’ They avoided films with long battle scenes or big explosions: his legs and hands starting to jump, face sweaty, eyes fixed.

‘I’ve it downloaded. We can watch a bit if you’ve got time to break another nail and say we’re talking potty training?’

Carly didn’t need asking twice.

*

To Pax’s relief the airport hotel accepted small, well-behaved dogs for an extra charge, buying her lie that the deerhound puppy was a Yorkie-poo. ‘Oh, sweet! What’s his name?’

‘Incognito.’

Having found her room – small and corporate with a worryingly empty minibar – she ordered a steak baguette and a large vodka from room service. She wasn’t hungry, but needed to legitimise the drink, and she knew the puppy would appreciate the steak. She started to pace again, restlessness kicking in with now-familiar pins and needles and adrenaline.

Her phone rang, a withheld number, and she leapt on it, hoping Luca had landed somewhere. Preferably back in Canada.

‘Patricia, this is Marianne,’ barked a familiar short-shrift Scottish voice. ‘I don’t want to discuss what is going on between you and my brother, but we have a bit of a – situation here, and I’m going to need your help.’

‘Is it Kes?’

‘No, he is perfectly fine, upstairs asleep with the boys. It’s Mack. He’s rather upset.’

‘Oh.’

‘The thing is, he’s on the garage roof.’

‘I see.’

‘And he’s refusing to come down until he talks to you. Mother is very upset. We all are.’

‘I suppose I’d better speak to him.’

‘I’ll hand you up.’

There was a lot of muffled clanks and she heard Mack’s voice demanding, ‘Is it her?’ before he came loudly on the line, his voice even more whisky- and sob-soaked.

‘I’m not fucking coming down until you tell me you fucking love me!’

‘For Chrissake, Mack.’

‘I can wait here all night!’

‘Don’t be silly. Just come down.’ She tried to picture him up on Marianne’s flat double garage roof, accessed by crawling through the bathroom window. It was hardly the Empire State, and Mack wasn’t the suicidal sort. She suspected you could throw yourself off it from a hundred different angles and not break a bone, but she didn’t want to test it.

‘You worshipped me once, Tishy!’ he wailed.

False gods. Always her weakness.

‘There’s someone fucking else, isn’t there?’ he was deman-ding now.

‘There’s nobody, Mack.’

‘Don’t fucking lie!’

She laughed hollowly, unable to imagine where she’d get the time and energy for infidelity, let alone the self-confidence. How much simpler would it be to get through this if there was an affair, to justify it with a burning new love rather than giving up on a burnt-out one?