It’s the words ‘this morning’ that jar. ‘What time is it with you?’ I feel around for my watch in my trouser pocket.

‘Same time as you,’ Robert says. ‘I’m in Ague, Alice. Ague!’ he repeats and a cold hand squeezes my heart back down to size, smaller and smaller it shrinks until it’s no bigger than a tiny unyielding pip.

‘I flew into Tucson last night, I’ve been calling ever since. Where the hell have you all been?’

I picture the phone ringing to an empty cabin, the children in a messy jumble of legs and cracker crumbs on Benjamín’s sofa. ‘In the end I thought I’d better jump in a taxi. Ridiculously expensive,’ I can hear Robert saying, ‘and then of course I couldn’t remember exactly where the turn-off was so I came here and by the time I checked in, well ... it was late and I didn’t want to wake you.’ He carries on talking. About the hotel, something about the room. I manage to ask him where he is and he confirms Prestcott’s and instructs me to come and pick him up and all the time there is this lump forming in my throat.

It’s not tears, though. It’s more like a cat’s hair ball, or undigested pig’s fat.

‘Daddy, Daddy!’ Emmy and Jack hurl themselves into their father’s arms. The children jabber at him excitedly. There’s a lot of delight and disbelief, a lot of kissing. I watch them giving him all the unconditional love and affection that I don’t feel and it’s so painful that I have to look away. Afterwards it’s my turn. We embrace each other with stiff robot arms, then veer clunkily away from a kiss on the lips. Robert smells of aeroplanes and London pavements and a life I thought I’d left far behind.

In the truck he leans his head against the window with an epic sigh.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine. Tired. Long flight, long drive, you know . . .’

‘You should have told me you were coming.’

‘It was all a bit spur of the moment. I called you as soon as I landed. Where were you last night?’

‘In Mexico!’ Emmy pipes up from the back.

‘Mexico?’ Robert looks confused.

Mindful of the children’s Spock-like ears, I come up with something vague. Pots and pans for the cabin, late-night shopping in Nogales—

‘So who was looking after the children?’

‘Benjamín.’

‘The Mexican? On his own?’

‘Of course on his own.’

‘Alice . . .’ he starts uncomfortably.

‘What?’

‘Daddy, I want you to come and see my bedroom,’ Emmy butts in. ‘I painted it all by myself. Daddy, I painted the whole house by myself!’

‘Did you, darling?’ Robert presses a handkerchief to the sheen of sweat on his neck. ‘Well done you!’

‘I helped too,’ Jack says. ‘We all did, even Benjamín.’