The first year of our marriage was blissful. Until Kivi, and since then, Chris has been obsessing over my fidelity. Not that he lets his jealousy get in the way of my job and my requirement to travel; he is too dependent on my salary to pay the mortgage so he can spend his money on luxury tat. It started at some family thing with his mum’s Finnish side. Vappu is a big national holiday in Finland, so on the first day of May we all gathered at a campsite in the New Forest to celebrate the end of the cold, dark winter and usher in the fabulous light of the summer. Kivi is his cousin, or second cousin, or some kind of cousin once removed—Leah and I had no other family growing up, Mum’s an only child and Dad obviously hid our existence from his lot, and so I have never really got to grips with extended families and the like—anyway, Kivi is a relative of some type. Tall, blond, strong build, ski-jump nose, kind eyes. He was a constant focus of attention at the party. Chris hates that. When other men are more attractive to women than he is. He cannot stand to be relegated to second—or heaven forbid third—place in the pecking order. And he was not best pleased when Kivi seemed to take a bit of a shine to me, all very innocently of course.

The campsite had been decorated in blues and whites like the Finnish flag, with a huge bonfire roaring in the center of the clearing. To one side, a barbecue cooked venison sausages and burgers, sizzling under the expert eye of Kivi, who had been designated grill-master. Much to Chris’s disgust.

“Rudolph or Prancer?” Kivi asked when I went to get myself a burger, bursting into laughter that quickly trailed off when he saw the look of horror on my face.

“Voi paska! I’m so sorry,” he said. “They’re just venison, I promise. You can’t get reindeer that easily here.”

“You… you eat reindeer?”

“At home in Finland, yes of course. But these,” he motioned at the grill, “I promise are just venison. No Rudolph at all.”

Later that evening he had come to find me to apologize again.

“It’s OK,” I told him.

“I don’t want you to think I’m a barbarian,” he replied, his eyes searching mine for forgiveness.

“Honestly, it’s OK.”

We’d laughed and had a drink, and everything had been lovely. Until I’d felt Chris’s fingers around my wrist, and he wasn’t being his usual gentle self.

“You filthy, disgusting slag,” he’d hissed into my ear, his grip tightening. “Parading yourself around in front of my family. You’re a fucking disgrace.” Then he had pulled me away from the crowd into the darkness of the woodland behind. Out of sight, he had slammed me against a tree trunk, my head bouncing off the wood, shock vibrating down my neck. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” I told him. I was incredulous. How dare he talk to me like that! But my tone was a mistake.