It actually started quite innocently, just two days after John Lewis delivered the gifts from our wedding list. Our house has old-fashioned hardwood floors, the original ones from when it was first built, all worn with age and pockmarked with dimples smoothed over time. My previous flat had underfloor heating and I’ll be honest that I was a bit grumpy about how cold the floor was on my bare feet. So, in the spirit of compromise that precedes all weddings, we added a thick rug to the gift list. It was the color of sand and in wonderful contrast to the single teal signature wall I had painted.

“That light color is a disaster waiting to happen,” Megan had said, a supercilious edge to her voice that was rather unattractive.

“Oh, don’t be neurotic.” I’d dismissed her concerns with a wave of my hand.

To be fair, I shouldn’t have been eating a Thai red curry balanced on my lap on the sofa. The stain was huge and pink, and even after I scrubbed and scrubbed it, it just looked at me. Staring its recriminating stare. I told you so, the mark whispered to me in Megan’s self-righteous tones.

When Megan got home that night, she walked into the living room and stopped, eyes flicking around the space. “What have you done in here?”

“What?” I kept my tone casual.

“It’s all different.” She said it as a statement, but there was a question in her voice.

“Different?” I stood up to pour her a drink. “You all right, sweetheart?”

“You’ve moved things.”

“I put out the vase and a few bits on the mantelpiece,” I said, motioning in the direction of the new candles we had been given by a friend of Megan’s from university. “Those candles smell divine, by the way.”

“The furniture?” That was a question, and her voice was louder. I waited for the bollocking, but there was no anger, just sad confusion. And fear. I could smell it coming off her. That was the moment I realized just how terrified she was of ending up like her mum and just how much she believed it was only a matter of time before the madness came for her. If it wasn’t already here.

I handed her a glass of wine and guided her to the sofa, now further forward in the space, with the chest we stored blankets in pulled into the middle of the room as a coffee table. Directly over the pink stain. Her fingers turned white as she gripped the glass, and I kissed her gently on her shoulder. “You’ve just had a long day, sweetheart. Too much stress trying to catch up on work after the honeymoon.” My voice was soothing, and I could feel her relaxing against me. “Let’s just chill, eh? Maybe have an early night.”

* * *

We’d been married about six months when I went on a work retreat to Canterbury. One of the newest recruits had just completed her masters in psychology and was all academic brilliance, button-up cardie and fuck-all life experience. On the last evening, she sucked me off in the corner of a rather grubby nightclub, the knees of her jeans soaking through with beer and alcopops. In celebration of the event, I bought a small statue of the cathedral made from bronze-colored metal from the souvenir shop and popped it on to the shelf in the corner of the living room. Megan didn’t notice for two weeks, but I felt a little frisson every time I glanced toward it.