“Oh.” Cate wrinkles her nose. “You know—pretty weird. I was huge. It was just a few of us—a civil ceremony, a meal at a restaurant. All I wanted was to have a few drinks, but I couldn’t, obviously. My dad flew in from Spain and gave a terrible speech. My stepmother got drunk on champagne. It was the first time they met Sam. I just kept thinking that it was all a bit shotgun and entirely unnecessary and wishing I could get drunk. I couldn’t work out who we were doing it for.”

“And now you don’t want to have sex with him.”

“Yeah. No. Yeah.”

“Well,” Dea grins, “you know, I think that’s entirely normal. I think having sex with a man is extraordinary. All that penetration.”

“It’s not all bad. Sometimes it’s actually quite good.”

“If you say so.”

Cate hesitates and then, “I was with a woman once,” she says.

“Really? Well, I never.”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And . . . I think I was in love with her. I miss her.”

“Who was she?”

“Lucy? She was an activist, I suppose. She liked to climb trees.”

“Sexy.”

“It was.”

“Where is she now?”

“I have no idea. The States, probably. That’s where I left her. If she’s still alive. She was going to be arrested, so she went underground. I’ve been looking a bit, lately. Trying to find her again.”

“Okaaay.”

“What?”

“So you don’t want to have sex with your husband, but you’re looking for old lovers online? Sexy illegal lovers online.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Really? What’s it like then?”

“She was important to me. For all sorts of reasons. Not just sex. Anyway, it’s probably good I haven’t found her.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure she’d approve of what I’ve become.”

“What have you become?”

“Less.”

Dea is quiet, regarding her. That expression she has—curious, amused, alive. It is strange, thinks Cate, but she does not mind being seen by her, being stretched gently on the rack of her attention.

“So, come on,” says Dea. “Just one woman? Or more?”

“One more. After Lucy. But it was a disaster. It ended very quickly. And I realized I wasn’t gay. I just loved a woman. One woman. Once.”

“Aha, the old Gertrude Stein line.”

“Do I have to define it?” Cate says, defensive now.

“No,” says Dea. “Sorry. Of course you don’t.”

Cate watches her face, but there is no judgment, just that same amused look.

“Does he know?” says Dea.

“Who, Sam? A little, not all.”

“Don’t you think you should tell him?”

“I think it might be confusing.”

“Confusing for who?”

Cate falls silent. “That’s a lot of questions,” she says quietly. “What about you?”