Facing him, she tells him that before he sets up for the day on the kitchen table, it’s not convenient for him to be working in her space. He’s to shut the wooden doors to the dining room area, or to retreat upstairs to the small study. She can’t continue to pussyfoot around.

‘I need my space,’ she tells him. ‘And it doesn’t work for me going forward that you’re in it.’

He looks surprised. ‘But you’re not doing anything.’

She opens her mouth, shocked that this is actually what he thinks. ‘Pim, I do everything. Every bloody thing. I clean, I tidy, I wash and iron, I think about, shop for and make every bit of food that goes into your mouth, then I clean your plate away and use my very underutilised brain to plan the next meal to keep it interesting – not that any of you ever … ever appreciate it.’

Her voice has risen. She can’t believe she’s actually said these words out loud, rather than muttering them silently to herself.

‘Claire—’ he says, but she holds up her hand.

‘Please don’t try and justify yourself. Just hear what I’ve just said.’

‘All right. I hear you,’ he says, in a slightly defeated way. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll get out of your hair.’

His computer makes a sound – another Zoom call. He gets up and takes his laptop and leaves her shaking in the kitchen.

She holds on to the kitchen worktop and looks at the magpies in the cherry tree. After a moment, she flicks on the radio. A pop song is playing from the nineties – the Cardigans – and she knows the tune. She hums it, letting her voice and her mind reclaim her kitchen.

‘Not doing anything,’ she says aloud. ‘The feckin’ cheek of it.’

15

Tent Call

Maddy is out with Luna for her early-afternoon stroll around the graveyard. She’s been taking the little dog out every day since New Year to help Matteo out, but also because she likes having an excuse to get out of the flat. Talking to Matteo on the doorstep is becoming the highlight of her days.

She wishes she could talk to a girlfriend about this little flirtation going on. Is she being a crazy menopausal woman thinking that Matteo might find her attractive, like she finds him? There’s such a big age difference between them. Surely someone as hot as Matteo would go after younger women? He’s confided to her that he wants children and that’s why it could never have worked out with Shauna, who didn’t feel mentally stable enough to be a mother, so Maddy is at completely the wrong life stage for him. So what could he possibly see in her? Nothing, surely? But then … the way he looks at her …? She can’t help thinking that something might be there. Not that she would have the guts to do anything about it, but it’s making her feel like a bloody teenager when she imagines what he might look like naked.