‘What are you talking about?’ The diamond indented my other fingers as I yanked at the gold. I reached for the washing-up liquid.

‘Constance, don’t . . . Please don’t. Try it for a bit . . . See how you feel.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Dale, it’s killing me.’ As I massaged the green gel around the metal, I sensed him behind me. The curry rose in my gullet.

He moved my hair to the side. His breath tickling my neck. ‘Please just leave it.’ He lowered his lips to kiss my crawling skin.

I turned to make it stop. His chest met my face, the thick wool of his jumper suffocating me. Within the free inch of space between our bodies, I twisted and twisted until I managed to prise off the ring. My hand squeezed up in front of us.

‘Here,’ I said.

He lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. Forced me to look at his clouded eyes. At his face, now wet with tears, to which I’d been oblivious.

‘Do you have any idea what it’s like? To love someone so much and for them to not love you back?’ His voice was calm, low, tempered. Yet the hairs on my arms rose.

He released my chin, snatched the ring and sat back at the table. Rubbed it clean with his ribbed cuff before returning it with care to the slot inside the box. Closed it.

‘I do everything for you,’ he said.

‘I know. I know you do.’

I wiped my wet detergent hands down my skirt, while watching him pour the dregs from the wine glass into his mouth, then start on mine, until he paused and said, ‘Is there someone else?’

‘No . . . No, of course not.’

He let out a short, sharp laugh. ‘So there’s no one else?’

‘I’ve told you, no.’ I turned to finish drying my hands on the tea towel. Not pausing, not outwardly showing how my heart had almost stopped and the majority of blood had left my head. I’d masked it successfully.

Until he said, ‘The thing is, Constance . . . when you’re so consumed in watching someone else, you don’t notice eyes on you.’

My legs weakened. Spices burned the back of my throat.

‘What about the doctor?’

We looked at each other. I knew from his stare there was no point denying it. That it would make it worse. I lowered my head, barely able to make a noise from my constricted throat, and surrendered. ‘It . . . it was over before us. I swear.’

Nothing. I dared to raise my eyes to view him. He was tapping the box on the table, one, two, three, then flung it across the room like a cricket ball. It hit the wall, fell to the ground, lid splayed. Our silence highlighted by the sound of the ring tinkling against the terracotta tiles.