I turned the corner at Thresher Road and walked towards my street. I could smell Sunday dinners cooking; I thought of wives putting on their oven gloves. My waistband was loose; I’d lost weight.

I hadn’t shaved that morning and wondered if she would embrace me and then flinch from my stubble, and then decided that if she embraced me I needn’t be worrying about that.

I paused at the top of Croxley Road. At the far end, outside my house, I could see our red Escort parked. The place looked blameless. A man whose name I’d never known, who had once helped me push the car, came out of his house and said hello. I wondered if he, or anyone, knew I’d been kicked out. They must have noticed my things in the front garden.

My heart quickened as I walked nearer. And then my front door opened and Eleni came out. She was putting on her coat. She paused, and looked up at the sky, and hurried to the car. I was just about to call out when I saw that she wasn’t alone.

A man came out of the house and shut the front door. He double-locked it like a husband. He had a moustache; he zipped up his leather jacket. And then he got into the driving seat of my car and they drove away.

You probably think I’d been stupid, not to realize. But I had asked her if she’d fallen for anyone else and she’d said no. She had never been a truthful woman but for some reason I had believed her—I suppose because her list of complaints about me had been so long there didn’t seem room for anything else.

I sat on a neighbour’s wall for a while, till I felt damp. And then I fished out my keys and went across to my house. I thought: no wonder she hadn’t listened when I’d told her about pumping the choke; somebody else was going to start the bleeding car for her.

I let myself into the house, and paused in the hall. I felt alert; I sniffed the air. I made a swift inspection of the downstairs rooms.

The lounge was spotless. In the kitchen, she had actually done the washing up. It hurt me more than I can say, that the place was so tidy.

I crept upstairs—heavens knows why I crept, when the house was empty. To delay things I went into the bathroom. I wasn’t prepared for the scent of her perfume. They’re unexpected, scents; they catch you off guard. I paused for a moment. I inspected the basin area; there was his razor, an electric one, on the shelf. Behind the door hung an unknown, blue towelling robe.

I crossed the landing and opened the bedroom door. It smelt airless in there, as if people had been in it for a long time. I stood in the doorway. The room was altered. For a start, she had made the bed. There were turquoise sheets on it too, sheets I’d never seen, and a new patterned duvet cover. The TV had been brought up from the living room and was sitting on the chest of drawers, facing the bed. And there was a bunch of flowers in a vase. She had never put flowers in our bedroom. Perhaps he had put them there. I opened the wardrobe and there were his clothes, hanging next to hers. What a lot of jackets! It wasn’t my bedroom any more.