They stood locked together for a long time. It was so silent in the kitchen, and when Leonard spoke she felt herself start. His breath was warm on the top of her head. He was suggesting they go somewhere for the afternoon. ‘Like Andrew’s Saturday outings with Galina,’ he said. ‘But for us, a Sunday.’

‘And after our Sunday outing,’ Sylvie replied without any forethought, ‘let’s go to Europe.’

He laughed. ‘This evening? Tomorrow?’

She pulled back, wanting to see his face, this face she was still adjusting to without the moustache, and she wanted him to see hers. ‘Soon,’ she said, ‘I’d like us to go soon. A proper journey.’

‘To Europe?’

‘Europe or anywhere, as long as it’s far, as long as it’s different.’ And an idea suddenly came to her. ‘No one we know has been to South America. We could go there, start a trend.’

She saw Leonard’s surprise, saw his confusion: this was not the wife he was accustomed to. What an irony, she was thinking, if her affair was discovered not because she was caught in flagrante delicto with Mark — she would never be with Mark again — but because of how she had been changed by their time together.

A moment later and Leonard’s frown had disappeared, he was smiling. ‘South America?’ he said. She heard the intrigue in his voice. And then more firmly, ‘South America. What an interesting suggestion. Long ago, I read a suite of poems — wait, I’ll find it,’ and he dashed into his study, returning with a thin book. It was called The Heights of Macchu Picchu. They sat at the kitchen table and looked at the book together. The original Spanish was on one page and an English translation on the facing page. Sylvie had never heard of the poet Pablo Neruda, nor this place Macchu Picchu.

Leonard told her that Neruda was Chile’s greatest poet. ‘Political poems, nature poems, love poems. Wonderful love poems, unrivalled by any other modern poet. Including Rilke.’

Her husband knew about Rilke? This poet she thought she’d discovered herself?

‘And Macchu Picchu?’

‘I’ve seen pictures of it,’ Leonard said. ‘It’s an ancient Inca citadel built high in the Andes, surrounded by stunning, rugged peaks. It’s in ruins now, and perhaps because of this, it looks to me more like a great sacred site than a fortress. Ever since reading Neruda’s poem, I’ve wanted to see it.’

‘So let’s do it,’ Sylvie said. ‘Let’s go there.’

He was smiling at her, lovingly, nakedly.

‘I prefer you without the moustache,’ she said. ‘I see you more clearly now.’

His smile disappeared. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

The weight of those words was inescapable. She was deliberating on what to say, when he spoke again.

‘Do you forgive me, Sylvie? Can you ever forgive me?’