Clearly my mother was running late for her joy and euphoria seminar. The woman made the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution look perky. Her once-beautiful face bore the deep marks of habitual dissatisfaction. You could smell disapproval on her, like BO oozing out of the armpits of a synthetic blouse on a scorching hot day. After criticising my housekeeping, cooking and child-raising skills, she departed in her new Mercedes, a recent purchase funded by selling off even more of Dad’s shares, without a backwards glance.

Normally I’d have immediately found Harry to vent my fury about my mother’s vindictiveness, but after my abrupt departure back to the boat for no plausible reason, leaving the prawns to go off on the kitchen counter, we’d turned into the kind of husband and wife who behaved towards each other with a distant courtesy. Expectation weighed like a thick blanket over our every move. Harry was doing everything he could to make himself agreeable. All the jobs he’d put off for eons – clearing the leaves out of the gutters, digging a fishpond, installing a compost bin, painting the laundry – were being ticked off his to-do list with dutiful good humour.

Hearing Ruth drive away, Harry appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Ding dong, the witch has gone! I still can’t believe she can appear in daylight, being, you know, a vampire. Do you like the fishpond so far? And what about the rockery I’ve started? Are they making you happy?’ he asked with trepidation.

‘Yes, I’m really happy,’ I replied, doubtfully.

Harry walked slowly out of the room, disquieted and puzzled, feeling my cool, pale gaze on his back.

I wasn’t trying to be disagreeable; but I just couldn’t settle. I didn’t even buy a whole litre of milk in case I decided to scarper once more. I constantly found myself shuffling aimlessly around the house like Marlene Dietrich in her later years.

One of the little niggling things that had always irritated me about my husband was his habit of splashing pool chlorine onto his T-shirt and bleaching it in pointillist spots. Every T-shirt he owned ended up Jackson Pollock-ed. I’d frequently offered to take over the job of mixing the pool chlorine but he always made out how difficult it was to get just the right balance – a cup of chlorine, stabiliser, acid, more pH. He took such care over this cocktail of chemicals and yet clearly could not adjust the chemical imbalance in our marriage. Since my birthday party we were out of whack as a couple and growing algae.