Last night, unable to sleep, he’d lain in bed listening to the old building’s bones creaking as the wind tried to find a way under the roof tiles and he tried to make sense of his life. Though valiantly trying not to show her fear and to come to terms with the big change in her own life, Hayley had ended up between him and Lily as surely as if she’d spent months planning it.

She couldn’t know what she was doing. He’d said nothing and Lily certainly wasn’t acting as if two weeks ago they’d rolled around on each other as if hot, naked, sweaty sex was never going to be available to them again … as was proving to be the case.

When he’d tried to reconnect with Lily she’d reacted as if he was trying to cheat on Hayley. He’d scarcely made an attempt to persuade her otherwise because her wide, horrified gaze had warned him that doing so would have diminished him in her estimation.

Then she’d come into the pub a couple of evenings ago with Carola and the Middletones. They’d all seemed pleased to see him but despite spending most of every day together in Switzerland he’d felt distanced from them by more than the width of the bar. They were having fun; he was at work. It had felt almost inevitable when Hayley had wafted downstairs, drawn by their singing, to make what felt like another barrier between him and them. He hadn’t blamed her. Upstairs must feel like a prison. He’d rarely known her cry but now it was a daily purging judging by the number of times he saw red-rimmed eyes, weeping when he was elsewhere, as if to spare him having to react.

Almost as inevitable had been her seating herself quietly to listen and Lily and Carola joining her, drawing her into conversation. He remembered their sympathetic faces as Hayley gestured to her bag of goo, lifting her arm slightly to demonstrate her limited movement. And he couldn’t even feel resentful of her because in a lull in the bar’s hubbub he’d overheard Hayley tell Lily and Carola that Isaac and his family had been amazing and she was ultra-aware that she was incredibly lucky in the circumstances.

That was the only time Lily’s polite smile had not reached her eyes.

Hayley was being brave, even when, today, Vicky had rung to say their dad was still in a bad way and now their mum was going downhill as if unable to bear the shock and had to have someone with her all the time. They couldn’t come back and take care of Hayley.