She runs back into the kitchen and sees Trent’s black iPhone on the counter next to another bottle of wine that he’s clearly just opened. She hears the downstairs loo flush.

Jamie hasn’t called her mobile and whilst she knows it’s ridiculous to think that he might have called Trent, if he was really in trouble, maybe, just maybe, he has.

She picks up the phone. To her surprise, it’s unlocked. Trent’s practically surgically attached to it twenty-four-seven, so it feels weird holding this familiar yet forbidden gadget in her hands. She looks at the unfamiliar apps and the odd layout of his screen. Seeing a number against the message icon, she automatically presses it. Please let it be Jamie. Please… please.

But there’s no text from Jamie, just a long list of texts from Helen. Her friend Helen. Helen Bradbury. Maddy recognises the tiny picture of her face, with her long chestnut brown hair.

A kind of sixth sense kicks in as she clicks on the top text, Jamie and his call momentarily forgotten.

On the screen, there’s a picture of Helen sitting in a chair taking an intimate selfie, one that’s so explicit it makes Maddy recoil and drop the phone.

Saliva floods her mouth as she steels herself and picks up Trent’s phone from where it’s spinning on the counter and looks at the picture again, noticing it has a banner over it flashing on the screen. Christmas Surprise WAITING FOR YOU. Miss you, Babes. There’s an animated stream of kisses and heart emojis.

Her skin is pricking all over. It’s a heady mixture of shock and a kind of recognition. Because now it makes sense. Her and Trent and the distance between them.

It’s not because of the stress of work … or Covid … or Jamie …

It’s because he’s been having an affair. With Helen fucking Bradbury.

Holding the phone gingerly, as if the photo of Helen’s minge might bite, she opens the call list. Dozens of calls. All from Helen. It’s all the proof she needs.

As if propelled by some other force, she calmly replaces the phone face down and then walks over to where the dirty lunch plates are still by the sink. She opens the dishwasher and starts stacking the plates from the side. It’s only when she hears Trent arriving in the kitchen that she realises that she hasn’t rinsed them with the snazzy hose in the sink.

She pauses, seeing him walk to the bottle of wine, as if everything is completely normal, and she feels a shaft of rage so violent that, before she knows what she’s doing, she frisbees the plate across the kitchen with a feral yell. Trent sees it in the nick of time and ducks as it smashes against the doorframe by his head and clatters to the floor in large chunks.

‘Maddy! What the fuck?’ he shouts.

She pauses only long enough to see that a splatter of turkey gravy has speckled the white stone tiles and blonde-wood kitchen units in a rather stylish arc, before she plucks another plate and chucks it in his direction.