As Tom disappears into the back room again Jenna looks past the glass doors, into the small, walled patio outside. A small black and white cat is stalking across the patio. Sensing it’s being watched, it turns sharply and stares, its green eyes startled and suspicious. Jenna stares back, then, remembering something someone told her about making friends with cats, blinks slowly and deliberately. She’s thirty-seven and animals are still a bit of a mystery to her: cats she finds unpredictable, horses are nervy and dogs are either over-friendly or aggressive. It’s not that she doesn’t like animals, she just can’t read them. She was desperate for a pet as a child but her dad was in the army and they moved house every couple of years so animals were a no-no. She’d quite like a cat but every lease she’s ever signed has said ‘no pets’. She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t hear Tom walk back into the room and when he gently places a blanket around her shoulders she shrieks in alarm.

‘Woah.’ He moves away, hands raised. ‘I’m sorry I … I should have asked if it was okay to touch you.’

‘You didn’t ask Kate.’ The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.

‘Sorry?’

‘I know what you did, Tom.’

He shakes his head, bewildered. ‘I don’t … I …’

‘I heard you. After we went swimming. You came back here with Kate. I was just around the corner when you were arguing. I heard you hit her.’

There’s a beat of silence. ‘That’s not what you heard.’

‘Isn’t it? Because it sounded like a slap to me.’

Tom stares at her for the longest time, unblinking, then he lowers his gaze. When he finally speaks, his voice is so quiet she doesn’t catch a word.

‘What was that?’ she asks.

Tom continues to stare at the terracotta floor tiles beneath his feet. ‘You got it wrong.’

She bristles. This is where he makes an excuse; tells her that Kate goaded him into hitting her. ‘Did I now?’

‘Forget it. Forget I said anything.’

‘No, you don’t get to do that. You can’t just brush it under the table.’

‘Just leave it.’

‘Is that what you said to Kate, right before you hit her?’

‘She hit me. Okay?’

Jenna stares at him, too shocked to respond.

‘Kate hit me. Not the other way round.’

Is he telling the truth? Or is this some twisted attempt to regain her sympathy? She doesn’t know what to believe.

‘For fuck’s sake. This is why I … why I can’t …’ He covers his face with his hands.

‘Why you can’t, what?’