If she were to attempt to make up for time lost when she was twenty or thirty or forty, then she would miss out on the possibilities offering now, to middle-aged Sylvie Morrow. Once time was lost, it seemed you were always in arrears. These days, she found Mark in the pages of books and in the daily newspaper; she found him at the supermarket and at the petrol station. The most mundane aspects of her life had been changed by knowing him.

There had been times during the years when she could have screamed with boredom and frustration, but she had stifled those feelings, knowing they’d pass. And besides, she had no good reason to complain, although she did wonder if other wives experienced the same dissatisfactions. She’d recently read an article about the Women’s Liberation Movement changing the lives of women. It hadn’t changed hers, nor indeed the lives of her friends; the women’s movement simply hadn’t touched her. But Mark Asher had.

Was any marriage as simple as she’d once thought? How many husbands were like Leonard, men who loved their wives but sought sex with other men? She’d consulted a library copy of The Kinsey Report, and learned that 10 per cent of males had sex with other males; this meant there might be as many as two or three men in their social circle just like Leonard. Since meeting Mark, she had also wondered how different her marriage might have been if Leonard had been like other men. There would have been more and better sex, she supposed, and given her response to Mark, that would have made a difference. But what else? And again she acknowledged that perhaps it was Leonard’s being as he was that attracted her, that without this odd quirk of nature he would have been far less appealing.

She wondered, too, how many women in strong and enduring marriages took lovers. She’d prefer not to be deceiving Leonard, but, at the same time, she felt surprisingly little guilt, and no sense whatsoever of betraying him. Mark didn’t threaten her marriage — her marriage hadn’t changed — but the borders of her life had shifted substantially. These days it felt as if there were no borders at all.

She could hear Maggie accusing her of self-delusion, and knowing this, had not confided in her sister. But neither did she feel a need to confide. You confide when you want reassurance, or when you are conflicted; she did not need reassurance, nor did she feel conflicted. She loved her husband, and she had taken a lover.

So much to experience when you start so far behind.