‘The directions were wrong.’

‘You mean you got lost.’

Over his shoulder I notice a shiny silver Porsche parked outside my house.

‘Did you buy a new car?’

‘Yes, do you like it?’

‘A sports car and a young blonde fiancée,’ I quip, my voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Did you get a tattoo as well?’

I know. I’m being horribly immature, but it’s all such a cliché. Michelle Obama’s famous phrase flicks through my mind: When they go low, we go high. I love that sentiment. Only, standing in my dressing gown, with a towel on my head and my cheating ex-husband on my doorstep, I have never felt less like Michelle Obama.

‘I heard you got a dog.’

Choosing to ignore me, he gestures to Harry, who is furiously trying to sniff David’s crotch, despite my best efforts to stop him.

‘Look, what are you doing here, David?’

Now that the shock of seeing my ex-husband turn up out of the blue is starting to subside, indignation snaps. How dare he just arrive uninvited like this? After everything he’s done?

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a bit late?’

He’s always been so entitled. It’s that middle-class public schoolboy thing. It’s infuriating.

‘Please, Liv.’

He looks at me pleadingly and, despite everything, I feel a tugging inside. It makes me even more furious.

‘For fuck’s sake, David – I don’t care what you have to say. I’m busy,’ I snap. ‘I’m going out and my hair is wet, and I have to get dressed. So if you don’t mind,’ I go to close the door, ‘goodbye.’

‘Hannah and I broke up.’

With my hand on the latch, I freeze.

‘So? What’s that got to do with me? We’re divorced.’ I try to steady my voice, but it threatens to betray me.

He doesn’t answer, but stands there in the rain, looking down at his feet. ‘That’s just it,’ David says finally, letting out a heavy sigh. ‘It’s got everything to do with you.’

And as he raises his eyes to mine, I feel a sudden weakness. A sense of my resolve wavering. My mind quickly races ahead, warning me: Don’t let him in. Don’t let him back in.

‘I’m getting drenched out here.’

Curiosity. Closure. Our history. A chance for us to try and be friends. Call it what you want.

‘You’ve got five minutes.’

I open the door.

I pour him a glass of wine, only a small one as he’s got to drive back to London – I make that very clear – and we sit down at my kitchen table. Me in my blue fluffy dressing gown; David looking rather soggy and dishevelled. The situation feels both strange and yet crushingly familiar. Me and David, sitting across a kitchen table from each other. God, how many years did we do that? Only now it’s not just the table that’s different.

‘I’ve been such an idiot, Liv.’

David is talking. Over this past year I’ve had so many conversations with myself in my head, rehearsed so many times what I was going to say to him. But now here we are and all those long speeches seem to have disappeared into thin air.