‘But the anger helped. It made me bloody-minded enough to get through. If you’d have come back at any time then, though, I’d have found a way. I’d have had you back, in an instant. But you didn’t. There was no call. No message. Nothing. So I had to carry on. The guys were kind–Tiger and Gary–tried to take me out of myself. I just got my head down and kept buggering on. There was no joy in it. Not for over a year. And then I just got so worn down by it all. Thought that if I didn’t do something soon it would just be a waste of a life. And so I’ve tried. And nothing has really happened yet. But something might. And I’ll try and be up for it if it does.’

‘I see,’ said Kate, softly.

‘I’m so very sorry. I don’t want to do this. God knows I never wanted it to happen. But I can’t go back there, Kate. I can’t risk it again. I’d love to say yes, let’s give it another go, but I really don’t have the appetite for it. I’m so very sorry.’

The room was silent, apart from the faintest strains of an operatic aria that seemed miles away. Kate sat quite still for a few moments, gazing into the middle distance. Then she got up and moved to the door. ‘I’d better be going.’

‘Where? Where will you go?’ he asked.

‘Oh, back to my hotel. Then on to…wherever it is this week.’

He looked at her standing there. The woman with whom he had shared more than half of his life, knowing that if he said the word she would stay. But he could not bring himself to say it, and she slipped on her coat and walked out of the front door, closing it quietly behind her.

Christopher stood there for a few moments, listening to the echoes of moments past, then turned, and saw Matt standing in front of him.

His son stared at him without speaking and then, very softly, murmured, ‘Oh, Dad!’ He walked forward and put his arms around his father’s shoulders, burying his head in his neck. Christopher could not speak, but he could feel the tears of his son running down his skin.

Matt took a large gulp of the malt whisky. He had almost stopped shaking now. ‘I had no idea you were there,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m sorry you had to hear.’

Matt shook his head. ‘I didn’t mean to be. I came in and heard voices. I just couldn’t go.’

‘They weren’t really for your ears, you know. The things I said. They were between your mother and me.’

‘I know.’

‘I wouldn’t want Ellie to know.’

‘Of course not.’