‘You’re still married. You still do photoshoots with your wife. This house.’ I gestured to the plasterboard piled up against a wall. ‘It’s still a dust cloud because you’re different, you don’t do things like other people. And I just have to put up with it. Because I’m not important enough to renovate your house for. I put up with all of it, Michael. Everything. Because I love you. But this is too much.’ I started pacing back and forth.

‘A million girls—’

‘Would be grateful to live with you. I know. But only if they’re the only girl living with you. Isn’t that what you always tell me when you’ve been gone for weeks? That I’m your special girl, your only girl, the only one who lives in your big fancy house? Just me?’

‘Lorna, you’re being selfish.’

‘Michael, she can’t have that room,’ I said. ‘She can’t have the nearest room to you. It’s not right. I’m your girlfriend.’

Michael’s eyes darkened. ‘Lorna. Don’t throw those labels around. You don’t own me and I don’t own you. This is my house. I make the decisions. I’m not going to put her up in a room with bare boards and plaster dust.’

‘But Michael—’

‘Wait for me in the lounge.’

‘Michael—’

‘Now.’

When Michael came down to the lounge twenty minutes later, his eyes were dark and his shoulders hunched.

Without a word, he punched me in the eye and I fell to the floor.

‘You don’t question me,’ he said. ‘Ever. Not in my house.’

The punching was so normal by then that I just lay there without complaint. He’d knocked me down plenty of times by then. One punch was nothing.

‘Christ, Lorna,’ said Michael, stalking back and forth. ‘Why can’t you just be normal?’

Eventually I got to my feet, rubbing my cheek. ‘Have you slept with her?’

‘What are you talking about, Lorna? No, I haven’t slept with her. She’s fifteen, for God’s sake. How could you even think that?’

‘Just promise me you won’t sleep with her, Michael. Promise me.’

‘You’re being jealous and paranoid, Lorna. Where’s my fun girl gone, huh? You’re turning into a nag. A few more months and you’ll be just like Diane.’

I started to cry, turning away from him. ‘Well, what do you expect me to think when you move another girl in here?’