‘Oh. Right.’ Getting married. Starting a family. It all sounds so delicate. Like nudging a domino and watching as the whole snaking line of them starts to fall down. He’s still looking at me. He thinks it’ll mend everything and make it right. Nothing can do that. There’s no way to go back. I shake my head to clear it. What am I supposed to say? I can’t stop thinking about May and the boy. I should never have got her hopes up like that. The terrible look on his face.

‘I don’t hate my job. Why would you assume that I hate it?’

‘Sana. Were you listening to what I just said? Are you even going to bother to give me an answer?’

I shrug. ‘It’s just – it’s not really something I can get my head round at the moment.’

He starts eating again. Turns the volume up on the TV. I look around at this little room and Ewan’s books and piles of marking and the peeling wallpaper in the corner. So bland and bare compared to home. However often we moved, the first thing Mum did was hang the red curtains, roll out the patterned rugs.

‘Ewan,’ I say, ‘do we have a dictionary somewhere? There was this word Gill mentioned in the staff meeting–’

‘Are you serious?’ he spits out the words, ‘is this your way of changing the subject? Unbelievable, Sana. You’re so fucking oblivious sometimes.’

The word hits me like a sting. I’m not used to it, even now.

‘I’m sorry. I just wanted –’

‘You’re trying to put it off – like you put everything off. You’re more interested in them – they’re already dead. I’m talking about life, about making a family.’

I look at him and he stares back, waiting for something, demanding something. I have nothing to give. He scrapes the last of the pasta from the bowl. Sucks it off the fork and puts the empty dish onto the coffee table. I should say something. Too late now. I wait for him to leave, to go into the bedroom. He gets up and walks out – making a point of not slamming the door.