‘I know that sounds like a lie,’ he said. ‘But I promise you, it’s not. Yes, I was in Derry that night and yes, I met Clare for dinner, but it was perfectly innocent.’

‘If it was perfectly innocent then why didn’t you tell me about it? Where did you sleep, or do I not want to know the sordid details?’

Even as I spoke I knew I was being a hypocrite. I was guilty of betrayal, too, and my emotional betrayal with Michael had started long before we’d become physical.

‘Rachel, I slept in my mother’s house that night. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to get the chance to talk to Clare privately and I knew you’d ask all sorts of questions if I told you outright I was going out for dinner with your friend. But the dinner was just incidental. We were both hungry. It seemed sensible to have something to eat.’

‘But why did you want to talk to my friend in private?’ I kept my voice low, but there was no mistaking my anger and confusion.

I watched Paul take a deep breath. ‘Because I didn’t know how to talk to you any more. It seems we can’t be in the same room without a row breaking out.’

I bristled, opened my mouth to bite back.

‘And I’m not saying that’s all your fault, or that it’s all my fault, but it is what it is, Rachel, and I thought Clare could help me to reach you.’

‘But you can reach me. You just had to pick up the phone and talk, or sit across the table from me, or ask how I was and listen …’

I felt a wobble in my voice then and I was surprised at the emotion I was feeling. Grief. Loss. The loss of him and so much else that year.

‘That’s the thing, Rachel. I can’t, and I’ve not been able to for a long time. Not since your mother took ill, and then when she died …’