I’d never seen him angry before. It wasn’t pretty. He was cold angry, not hot angry, and it made his face look as hard as a skull. But he made a real effort to control it, and when he spoke he sounded almost as charming and reasonable as usual.

‘I was married when I first met your mother years ago, and now I’m not.’

‘You never said.’

‘You never asked. It’s not a secret. It was a clean break and it’s all over and done with, and it’s none of Sean’s business. He’s jealous and he’s trying to stir up trouble, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘You’re the one who’s jealous. You just hit him, and he barely even provoked you.’

He didn’t like that. Not one little bit. But what was he going to do, thump me the way he’d just thumped Dad? That was one thing Mum would never have forgiven him.

‘I’m sorry you had to see that,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry you felt you had to drive him away. Anyway, it didn’t take much. He’s already given up.’

I went upstairs into the flat. Mum and Ellie were in the kitchen, and Mum was making tea: whenever either of us was unwell, that was Mum’s first line of defence.

Ellie still looked pale, and she started guiltily as I stuck my head round the door.

‘I’ll be in the bedroom,’ I said.

Mum said, ‘Where’s Mark?’

‘I expect he’ll be up in a minute. He just punched Dad. You might want to ask him about that.’

I withdrew and shut the bedroom door. I could hear the sound of conversation going on in the kitchen – it was Mark and Mum talking – but not what they were saying.

Maybe that would be the end of it. Maybe Mum would dump Mark now she knew he was capable of lashing out like that.

I had a feeling she wouldn’t, though. That was one of the problems with having been married to someone like Dad; you got used to making allowances.

Seven

Jenny

I had never been the kind of woman who goes to hotels in the afternoon to have sex, whatever kind of woman that is. A rich and busy woman having an affair, or one whose lover is rich and busy, I suppose. Not me, the divorced single mother-of-two who was always working and never had any money, who hadn’t got involved with anyone since her marriage fell apart.

But what were the alternatives? Mark travelled constantly for his work as an IT consultant, but his home – which I’d never seen – was in the Oxfordshire countryside, and my flat wasn’t much of a love nest. Even when it was empty, the girls’ presence lingered: the smell of Ava’s shampoo, Ellie’s books and notebooks. It wasn’t nearly anonymous or private enough. We had neighbours all around; they didn’t have to be nosy to notice a sudden new visitor – sound travelled, the entrance to the building was shared, and it was difficult to avoid picking up details about each other’s lives.