‘This is Ariel,’ said Ms Duke.

‘Hi there, Ariel,’ said her husband. ‘I’m Jasper.’

He held out a hand, and I concentrated very hard on shaking it while faking the best version of normal I could manage. My mind started racing. She had called him her husband. He was her husband, obviously. They both wore wedding rings. He’d just kissed her on the lips. The evidence was in.

He was definitely her husband.

And he was definitely Joe’s dad.

My French teacher lived in Joe’s house with his dad. She was married to Jasper Simpson.

Joe had said his dad fancied his French teacher, Mrs Dupont. But Ms Duke couldn’t be Mrs Dupont as well as Mrs Simpson. Could she? Wouldn’t that be too many names for one person?

I stammered apologies and goodbyes, and got the hell out of there as quickly as I could.

‘OK,’ I said to Joe. ‘This is mind-blowing. I don’t understand it myself, so I’m just going to say it. I met your dad.’

‘What?’

‘He was really nice. I went to your house. I was right in the house. I did a wee in the downstairs loo.’

‘And he was there?’

‘Not in the loo.’ We both smiled. ‘OK. You know your French teacher? Mrs Dupont?’ Joe nodded. I had a screenshot from the school website on my phone ready to show him. ‘Is this her, twenty years on, would you say?’

My hand trembled as I held the phone out.

Joe looked at it and nodded again.

‘Yeah, definitely. What are you …?’ I could see him trying to make sense of this.

‘So. I went to your house,’ I said, taking it back to the beginning.

I sat close to him, put my hand through his leg, shivering, but hoping it brought him some comfort. I wondered what it would be like to touch his leg but I knew I would never know.

‘At first I thought no one was there.’ I told him the story, ending with Ms Duke’s husband coming home. ‘So my Ms Duke is your Mrs Dupont. She’s lived in that house for twelve years.’

‘Why’s she got so many names?’

‘I know! I’ve been thinking about that. At school they say she’s been divorced five times, but I never believed it. All the same my guess is that she divorced Monsieur Dupont at some point, and went back to her maiden name, which could be Duke – she isn’t actually French after all – and then she didn’t change it when she married your dad. Loads of people don’t. Particularly when you’re a teacher, I guess, and you have to get everyone to call you something different and they all gossip about it.’

Joe thought about that. ‘Yeah. That would make sense.’