Patrick looked over the top of Bonnie’s head at his weeping wife, her lank hair, unmade-up face, grey complexion and thought, I don’t even recognize her any more. For a split second, he resented Bonnie for taking away the wife he adored and replacing her with this sad, grumpy shell of a woman.

‘Have you ever suffered from depression before?’ asked the GP, scrolling through screens of Gill’s medical records.

Gill wiped her hooded eyes and nodded slowly. ‘When I was at law school,’ she whispered, looking away. ‘I took an overdose. Had to get my stomach pumped.’

The doctor, a plump Indian lady with half a dozen noisy gold bangles and a kindly face – a locum, not Gill’s regular GP – scribbled a note on a pad shielded by her elbow so that Gill and Pat couldn’t see what she was writing. Pat could imagine, though.

‘I didn’t know that,’ he said incredulously. ‘How could I not have known that?’

Gill turned back to face them, and her face was bleak and empty. She opened her mouth to speak and Pat waited for the shamefaced apology – not an apology for trying to top herself, but for keeping such a huge secret from him, when he thought they had no secrets.

Instead she narrowed her eyes and spoke to the doctor:

‘Could you take off those bloody bangles, please? They’re doing my fucking head in.’

Pat and the locum both gasped. ‘I’m so sorry,’ the locum said evenly, sliding off the offending bracelets. She stacked them neatly on her desk, and for a moment all three of them gazed at them, saying nothing. Pat felt numb.

Then the doctor seemed to snap out of her reverie. ‘Mrs Lennon – may I call you Gill? – I think it’s pretty clear that you are suffering from postnatal depression – PND – but what I want to be very clear about is that this is a temporary condition, and with the appropriate treatments you should feel completely recovered again, hopefully in a very short time. Many women go through a bout of it, especially with a first child – you must never underestimate the physical and emotional stress you have both been placed under, suddenly having responsibility for a newborn baby. Add to that the lack of sleep, pressure to be good parents, and for you, Gill, drastic hormonal changes. Personally I’m amazed that more women do not go through it.’

Pat buried his face in the fluffy crown of Bonnie’s warm fragrant head. He suddenly wanted to cry too.