We are in the kitchen of our old house, the one that Tony and I shared, and into which Stanley erupted with the mission to build kitchen cupboards. Neither of them is here now, though. Tony has already moved out and Stanley is absent during this family colloquy, neatly presaging what’s to come. It is always Stanley’s way to take the easiest route and that is to absent himself from responsibility. He’s probably in the pub. It’s Ted I’m looking at and at Jack standing on my father’s lap. He is about three, not much older than Cassie now, with fat babyish legs emerging from a pair of green shorts.

Ted has never been physically demonstrative with my children, any more than he was with me. He likes to keep his clothes uncreased and his hands clean. But today Jack has demanded a connection and Ted has yielded. Jack is rocking up and down, feet planted on Ted’s thighs, pretending to ride a horse. Ted looks uncomfortable; he is smiling but there is an evasiveness in his eyes that I know of old. But at least he’s here, I think. My marriage is ending and Ted has come to visit us in order for me to be able to talk to him about it. He has rallied round in a crisis, as he would put it.

Lola is in the room too, somewhere on the margins. A smouldering, currently mute, perpetually angry adolescent presence. Clothes, hairstyle, language all unsuitable for her age, designed to provoke.

I put a drink at my father’s elbow. ‘Yes,’ I agree, choosing my words with care. ‘I know it’s a big decision. I didn’t make it lightly, please believe that …’

In fact, I am shell-shocked by my act of desertion, by my wilful destruction of our nuclear family when it had been my strongest intention to preserve its security for Lola and Jack. And yet – I am convinced that I am doing the right thing, because I am so helplessly and passionately in love, as I have never been before.

I am turning to my father, looking to him as a fellow-traveller. Ted will comprehend what I feel, surely, with his history? I need his understanding, his wisdom, his sympathy, and most of all to know that he doesn’t condemn me for what I have done. He takes a sip from the gin and tonic that I have prepared for him, replaces the glass on the table. From behind Jack’s energetically bouncing body I hear him say, ‘Think of your children, Sadie. Is this what they want?’

There is a clatter behind me. Lola slamming down a knife or the kitchen scissors. I dread her scathing response. I take a breath, count five long seconds, then tell the truth: ‘It’s what I want.’