‘I don’t.’ The sense of contentment she’d convinced herself she’d embraced appeared to have deserted her. She felt like a teenager again, giddy, uncertain, embarrassed.

‘Where are the kids?’

‘They’re with Julie. They’ll be here in a minute. I thought it was best to have a few minutes together first, just to . . . discuss practical things.’ But even as she said it, she knew that wasn’t true. Did it show?

‘Of course. How are they?’

‘They were all right for the first few months, but things have got a lot more complicated since then. You’ll . . . see. Gus is taciturn, even by his standards, and Fi has got very weird around her food.’ She felt on surer ground discussing their children.

‘Is she seeing a therapist?’

‘They both are. She’s perilously close to anorexia, but we’re monitoring it closely.’

Stuart nodded. It had always been so easy to talk to him. And it was, strangely, still. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’ She looked up at him and suddenly, through her disorientation, anger burst through. What did he expect her to say? That after seventeen years of marriage, more than twenty together, she had felt cleaved in two by his departure? ‘I’m fucking fantastic, Stuart. What do you think?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And stop saying that.’

‘What else would you like me to say?’

Kate bit her lip. She breathed out slowly, her head spinning, her stomach churning. It was like their first evening together, but without the giddy sense of possibility. ‘How’s life in Moscow?’

‘Not much fun. I get a paltry pension for my betrayal, which is hard to live on. I’m trying to find work, but they have little interest in helping. They treat me as if I’m a vaguely infectious disease.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Which perhaps I am. The British Embassy does a good job of killing off my chances with any company that checks in with them, so I’m a bit screwed, to be honest. But no more than I deserve.’

‘Do you get a flat?’

‘Yes. And a car. But both are pretty decrepit.’

They were silent for a moment. Kate stared at the floor, which seemed the safest place to look. ‘I just wanted to discuss how things are going to work with the children in the future,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’d both agree that their interests are paramount.’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t know what you were thinking, but—’

‘I’ll fall in with whatever you want to do. I’m sitting in Moscow, doing nothing. So . . .’ he shrugged ‘. . . this will be all I’m living for. And they don’t seem to care what I do or where I go.’

‘Of course they care. They’ll be watching.’

‘I doubt it. I think my days of usefulness, or at least relevance, are at an end. The only issue is cash. I don’t have much spare money, so I don’t know how frequently I’ll be able to travel around Europe.’